Fairy Tales and Brave Vesperia
by Sylph Writer
Summary: Fairies aren't all about glitter and wishes, they're trouble. If you get one mad, he might just send you somewhere you never expected for punishment. Written because I needed to write something, and Tales of Vesperia doesn't have many SI fanfictions.
1. Chapter 1: The Butterfly Did It!

I'm surprised I'm putting this online... I started writing it just to vent, and now look at it! This is almost a prologue/the first chapter.

x x x

Chapter 1: The Butterfly Did It!

x x x

**Oh Gawd I can't stand the boys in the room next to ours. They don't seem to get the message that they play their music **_**too damn loud**_**. I've already gone over three times (on separate occasions) to politely tell them as much, but next day it's back as loud as ever. My roommate and I are soooo sick of hearing the same songs over and over and over fifty times! We don't even like any of their music, and even if we did we'd probably be sick of it by now.**

**Too loud for headphones to help much. Wearing those little ear bud things for too long hurts my ears anyway.**

**Goddammit.**

**It got louder.**

**If it wasn't for the fact that I'd be the one that would get in trouble, I'd totally go over and kick his ass. Dropkick to the head like Alex always tells me to do. Even if I can't pull off a drop kick.**

**If it was possible to open the screens on our windows, I know I'd definitely chuck something at their window.**

**Goddammit. **_**Yes**_**, my window is closed, **_**no**_** that doesn't help. Nor does it help that the music goes away, and when I open my window again (too much heating in these rooms) the music comes back ten minutes later...**

**Opened my window again, let's see how long the peace lasts...**

**Aww damn, now it's the neighbors across the hall. The only thing worse is when either or both are playing music or talking at **_**one in the god damned morning like last night**_**. Jeez, come on, I know it was a Friday night but there's still quiet hours and decency for those of us who didn't get enough sleep this week.**

**Aaaand there's the other neighbors again, though hey, not so loud yet...scratch that.**

**I'm **_**this **_**close to screaming out the window at them.**

**And yes, Alex **_**did**_** tell me I should dropkick them. In a text.**

**And I've been tempted to blast something in Japanese right back at them.**

**Neighbors across the hall are running around screaming like madwomen. The hell is wrong with people?**

**Yes I sound like an old lady and a prude. Really, I wouldn't give a damn about what any of them do, it's their own business, if **_**only **_**they didn't freakin' make it a public event.**

**I. Hate. People.**

**Oh. Hello there disturbingly homicidal side of my personality that rather disturbs my few friends that have had brief glimpses of you. Are you going to shove wood shavings down someone's throat? My computer giving us attitude probably isn't helping calm you down any.**

**Well, the dorm is reasonably quiet right now, so if my computer finishes acting up right about now I think we can get through the night without any...unpleasantness that we would all regret later.**

**Chucking the laptop at the neighbor's window sounds kind of appealing...**

**GODDAMMIT IT'S THAT SAME EFFING SONG AGAIN! WHAT, DO YOU GUYS ONLY HAVE FIVE SONGS TO PICK FROM? PLAY SOMETHING ELSE!**

**(...Who's playing Pokerface?)**

_**Listening to: Never Forgive Me, Never Forget Me (Hate scary movies and games, but damn if I don't love some of the music.)**_

x x x

I finally gave up on playing the waiting game in the hopes of outlasting the sources of my irritation. I was half successful; the girls across the hall had finished up whatever the hell they'd been doing (I usually assume on the weekend that it involves make up and hairspray) and left for the evening. It was rather like having chickens with their heads chopped off running around in circles for awhile... The boys in the room around the corner, however, were still playing their music as loudly as ever.

Fucking rap pretending to be techno.

My roommate had left for the weekend (lucky her) and Alex probably sensed from that one text message I'd sent and he'd replied to (a single word: "dropkick." I'm not at all surprised.) that his life and limbs would be endangered if he dropped by.

So I figured I'd go out for a walk, either along the lake and risk my neck climbing down to the water or over to that field Alex showed me where there's (almost) no light to ruin star gazing. Both were good options, I could see the stars from either and the sound of waves can be soothing. But one required a short walk through a somewhat creepy and _very_ dark piece of forest, while the other required picking my way down rock paths I couldn't see and good odds of sitting in the cold wind.

Mild discomforts that posed no risks to my sanity though. It could be raining and I'd still go out to get away at this point. I could be chased through the trees by a crazy ax wielding murderer and still not regret it.

I slipped on my denim jacket and jammed a few things into the pockets; my wallet and ID card, room keys, cell phone, and mp3 player with spare batteries. Sticking the ear buds (only using them 'til I find a good set of headphones) into my ears I left the building and looked up into the sky. It was clear and cloudless with a full moon hanging behind the dorm. A moon like that was perfect for a late night stroll, but meant that stargazing wouldn't be as great.

The lake it was then.

After crossing a lawn and a few small streets I came to the slight drop off you had to climb down to get to the water side. Rather than threading through trees and rocks feeling for invisible footholds, I turned (humming along with "Hello" by Evanescence) and followed the edge for what I knew to be a fifteen minute or so walk.

Behind the parking lot near the campus library was an indentation that wasn't as steep and just barely better lit than the other paths to the water. I paused to watch the white breakers to see where they outlined the rocky beach, surprised by the constant wind rushing up at me from the water. It was warmer than I had expected and the water rougher than the last time I'd been there. Still, in moments I was scrambling down the rocks, blinking away the dirt blowing into my eyes, and finding a rock to sit on that was out of the parking lot's orange light.

"Hope Vol. II" (Apocalyptica) was in my ears, and having seen no one else around I allowed myself to heartily sing along, pouring as much of my voice and soul into the chorus as I knew how. I'm not the best singer, I refuse to let other people hear me, but there are times when I feel like I'll burst if I don't sing. So when "Hope" ended I switched off the power and continued on my own.

_The Turn of a Friendly Card, *_

_Brothers, *_

_The Cask of Amontillado, *_

The warm breeze whipped my brown hair around my face and the trees behind me swayed.

_Into the West, *_

_Fake Wings, *_

The braid that hangs in front of my right ear is twice as long as the rest of my hair, and it swung around as if it had a life of its own, hitting me on the nose a few times.

_Stray Child, *_

_The Siren, *_

_Gaeta's Lament, *_

The moon was large, bright, and directly behind me, its light casting the trees' shadows before me.

_Aura, *_

_Gollum's Song, *_

All around my own shadow, those of the trees' branches seemed to dance wildly to my singing.

_St. Gabriel's Mask, *_

_Gollum's Riddle, *_

_Room of Angel, *_

I sang them all, no order or reason in mind, just letting them out as they came to me.

_I'm Talkin' to You, *_

_To One in Paradise.*_

I didn't sing most of the songs as well as I knew I could, but I didn't care much. As if to make up for it, some of the others were better than ever. It wasn't until I started coughing when drawing in a breath for the chorus of "To One in Paradise" that I finally stopped.

It was like a spell I'd cast on myself was broken. My throat ached from use, wind, and spray from the lake.I stood up, finding my legs were shaky and a little numb from sitting on cold rock for so long. It wasn't until I turned around that I realized-

"_Woah Jeez!"_ -someone was standing right behind me. The involuntary jump I made was enough for me to stumble back and fall into the water. It might have been nice during the day, but right now it was too cold for me. Adding further insult to injury, I swear I heard the person laugh at me.

"Hnph." I kid you not, that's how he laughed. Like he wouldn't demean himself by outright laughing, but needed to make some indication of his low opinion of me. I glared up at him, though with his back to the light and standing under the embankment I couldn't see him clearly. "Your vocal skills are in dear need of proper training, and I'd say your sense of grace and perception of your surroundings are even more lacking."

_Oh, you bastard_, I could feel the heat rising in my face, but chose to simply ignore him and outwardly show no signs of my irritation. I wasn't going to encourage anyone whose hobby is getting a rise out of others, and plenty of people will give up this way.

Wait, wasn't one of the reasons I picked this place because I'd felt relatively confident that no one could come up behind me unnoticed and overhear? Especially when I'm singing, I get so paranoid that someone is going to sneak up on me (and that grows exponentially in the dark) that it's pretty impossible.

_Whatever_, I dismissed my embarrassment,_ odds are I won't run into this person again, and I'll be more careful where I sing next time._ But as I tried to walk past him, _I'm ignooooring youuu_, _hey this guy's shorter than me!_ he reached out to grab my arm.

"It's rather rude to ignore someone who is addressing you."

I stopped and turned to look at him, though I still couldn't see any details. "That it is, but it's even _ruder_ to insult a person when they haven't done anything to you." Yay, petty victory! No, Bad Me, don't feed trolls even if they're not online!

He went "Hnph!" again and said, "You certainly are an impertinent child. If you are as good with a real blade as with your sharp tongue, you might have a chance." Wait, what? A blade?

"Whatever you're offering, I want no part of it." I pulled away from him, breaking his grip easily with a basic wrist technique I learned from Aikido practice, and began picking my way over the rocks to return the banks and yellow lights of the parking lot. But the rocks disappeared, and the banks, and the light too.

I had only a moment of stupefied shock before I heard the words, "It's not an offer." I spun around to face him, and despite the lack of any light I could see him clearly for the first time.

_What the heck? I've been kidnapped by a freakin' monarch butterfly!_

x x x

You heard me right! No one ever suspects the butterfly~!

I changed the one actual name I used in this, no giving away the names of any of my friends! Oh, and the wood shavings part? Part of a random conversation I once had when I was extremely angry at my computer...

* Songs from my "Mental Playlist" aka songs I know the words to by heart. Yeah, there's over fifty of them and counting. I don't even care if anyone laughs at me for that.

"The Turn of a Friendly Card" "The Cask of Amontillado" "I'm Talkin' to You" "To One in Paradise"

- Songs by the Alan Parsons Project (great band from the 80s)

"Brothers"

- Song from the anime Full Metal Alchemist (the way Vic Mignogna translated it, plus an extra verse I've heard on Youtube)

"Gollum's Song" "Into The West"

- Songs from Lord of the Rings movies 2 and 3 respectively.

"Gollum's Riddle"

- Song from an animated movie of The Hobbit made in the 80s.

"Fake Wings" "Stray Child" "Aura"

- Songs by Yuki Kajiura (used in the .hack animes)

"The Siren"

- Song by Nightwish (three very short verses...epic instrumentals)

"Gaeta's Lament"

- Song from Battlestar Galactica (Never watched it, don't plan to)

"St. Gabriel's Mask"

- Vocal Remix of music from the Ecco games (my brother plays them)

"Room of Angel"

- Song from Silent Hill games (game 3, I think, or 4. NEVER GONNA PLAY THEM.)

I really can't say why there's such an overload of songs in this chapter. It won't happen like this again, but there might be a chapter or two (or three...) where it comes close. Though I'll take pity on you all, and try not to sing in most of the chapters.


	2. Chapter 2: Good Samaritan

Chapter 2: Good Samaritan

x x x

_What the heck? I've been kidnapped by a freakin' monarch butterfly!_

Okay, not really, but he looked like one. Probably had something to do with the gigantic wings on his back. Yeah. Big orange wings dotted and streaked with black. I'm not the only one who would make this connection, I'm sure.

This impression was reinforced by how he was dressed in gold, black, orange, and even a bit of red here and there. Fine, gentlemanly looking clothes (you know? Shirt, vest, jacket, nice dress pants and mirror-shiny black shoes), but awful flashy and set off the warning bells in my head. The ones that detect potentially narcissistic people.

Right, so, with the evidence I had at my disposal I could draw two conclusions. Either one: I had fallen asleep somewhere down the line and was having one of my more interesting dreams (before long I'd probably start going all ninja on someone or break out Indiana Jones caliber temple raiding skills) or two: my (childish/slightly nerdy) dreams had been answered, fairies were real, and one was getting steadily more ticked off at me.

When faced with those two options, it's only logical you should proceed as if the second is true. Why? Because if it's a dream after all then no harm done, but if it's real and you're caught up in denial from step one you might not live to step two. Especially if you've pissed off a fairy. Seriously, don't do that, old legends agree that they're temperamental and unpredictable even when they're in a _good _mood.

And I'm rambling, because roughly all of this, and a little more besides, ran through my head while I stared down (still thinking _hey, I'm like five inches taller!_ in some weirdly detached corner of my brain) at the fairy. In all of two or three seconds during which I probably looked like an idiot. It was pretty much condensed to something more like _Ho Shit, I've pissed off a fairy, I'm so screwed now._

After blinking at his smug expression for another moment I tried to regain at least some control over the situation. "All right, you've got my attention. Is there something you wanted to ask me?" _Careful with your words now, don't want to accidentally leave an opening he can twist to use against you. Like 'can I help you?' just now would have definitely turned me into a slave for life or something._

"Indeed, my associates and I have found ourselves in a rather difficult position. A particularly delicate situation that requires discretion, so as not to overly concern the court over something that really is quite trivial when you think about it. To our consternation this selfsame need for discretion makes it quite difficult to straighten out the affair on our own, and therefor requires the assistance of human mortals." I blinked again. _Umm, so basically, Butterfly here and his friends messed up, and to keep from getting egg on their faces in front of other fairies aka rival court members they need to outsource for help._

Hoping I really was on the same page I tried to politely keep up my side of the conversation. "I...see. And what kind of situation is this that you have to get help from humans? That is to say, why me specifically?" I held my breath, suddenly uneasy. I couldn't figure out what exactly, but something I said had probably been a mistake... I really didn't like the glint in Butterfly's purple eyes (did I mention that they were purple? I don't think I did. He also had platinum blond hair, about chin length, that looked very well cared for) or the way that smug little smile grew a fraction.

"In all honesty, you are not the ideal help we would have liked, but with our particular needs the options are fairly limited. This little exchange of ours, however, has raised my opinion of your value to us as you are demonstrating a fair ability to adapt to unconventional situations." That, I was positive, was a dig at how I had about faced from rude to mannerly. _Least you could do is stop insulting me...wait, since I can adapt to weirdness I'm a good choice? So I'm actually making things _worse_ for myself?_

"As for the nature of our present difficulty and the aid we require... A certain important heirloom was, you could say, misplaced recently." Recent for a fairy, as some of you may realize, could be fully a hundred years ago, "While it is of quite significant value to us, this heirloom is not particularly vital to any functions, and so is kept safeguarded away from the everyday bustle. That my associates and I even discovered that it was st-had been misplaced," _Ha! Didn't cover yourself fast enough, it was stolen!_ "was by pure coincidence. As of yet, no one else is aware of the situation and likely will not be for quite awhile. Rather than let the court excite itself over a small mistake, we will simply locate and quietly retrieve the heirloom."

If I hadn't caught the gist of where this was going by now, I'd have to give up my aspirations as a writer. "So you're, um, enlisting the help of humans to go track this heirloom down, right? That means it's somewhere, uh, difficult for you guys to blend in or something?" I inwardly kicked myself for twice almost slipping and saying something he might take offense at. "So what does this heirloom look like?"

_Oh God, that smile is _not_ a good sign, is it? I totally screwed up!_ Butterflies can apparently smile like sharks, or like an attorney that finally caught you in a loop hole. "If you're so interested in the matter, my dear, you can help us with our search." The little guy reached forward and caught my left hand in both of his before I could jump away, and _dammit_ that's a lot harder to break free from than a one handed grip like before!

I yelped at the sudden pain in my hand, a feeling like when I had accidentally spilled melted wax on my hand when I was younger, but it spread out from the center to my knuckles and my wrist. His grip loosened and I yanked my hand away. "_Sonuva-_what did you _do?_" I held my shaking hand up to look for a burn mark or knife wound or something. Instead my skin was now imprinted with a tattoo.

I gaped at it for a moment, some traitorous part of my mind commenting _hey, that looks kinda cool_. The style reminded me of Celtic knot-work, though more simplified, and it looked like it could be either a butterfly or a flower.

"This mark is an invaluable tool for your search. Not only will it provide me with an easy means of locating and contacting you, but it will indicate when the heirloom is nearby." He smiled brightly, as if he'd just given me coupons for a free day at the spa or something. I really wanted to smack him, I really did. I swear, he had a gift for bringing out my violent side.

"Dammit, Butterflyhead, why the hell did you pick _me?_ Do your own work!" Yeah, dropping the etiquette was a bad idea, but I was even more angry at people in general (including short, fairy winged people) than I had been two hours before. So I didn't care enough when he went kind of rigid and stared at me as if I'd sprouted some unpleasant smelling fungus from my head.

"Butterfly...head..."

"That's _you,_ you Flutterbrain, so tell me what gives!"

"_Flutter- _I'll have you know my name is _Nevys_, and if you dare address me by any other such ridiculous name again you can forget about those _answers_ you want!"

I lost it there, "Nevys? Are you kidding me? What kinda name is that? It sounds like that annoying little fairy in Zelda! From now on, you shall be called NEVI and run around yelling 'hey, listen!' at little boys dressed in green!" I'm thankful I didn't tack on the terrible Michael Jackson joke that popped into mind after that. Nevi probably would have killed me, even if he didn't know the first thing about twentieth century music artists. But it was worth the horrified look on his face. Just barely.

My left hand began to sting again, like pins and needles this time, and even though everything was dark and featureless I had the impression that the world was spinning around the two of us. As I clutched my hand and looked around with a dawning sense of I've-done-something-stupid Nevi fixed me with a glare.

"You'll have to thank the Fates that you are neither a boy nor wearing green. It shall be trying enough to deal with a new world without having to eat your own words." _I think you're gonna make me eat them anyway_, "I'll even be generous and tell you that one of the reasons you were selected was by virtue of having some prior knowledge, even if fairly minimal, of the world you will be in charge of searching."

Then it felt like the floor (...ground?) lurched under my feet and dropped me through an invisible trap door that had just been opened.

x x x

I landed on my back and lay still for a painfully long moment before my body remembered how to breathe again. "Ugh, that's worse than practicing hard falls..." Part of my mind vaguely thought it would be a good idea to at least sit up to recover, but somehow the memo to move didn't get much farther than that.

I'm not sure how long I stayed like that, trying to convince myself that I wanted to stand up when my body stubbornly insisted it wanted to stay down. My stalemate with myself was broken when large, calloused hands pulled me into an upright position and something wrapped around my shoulders to give me support.

"Hey now, missy, are you alright?" _Hmm, rumbling baritone from behind me...so some nice Samaritan is holding me in his arms. Must resist urge-to elbow in the ribs-_ When I opened my eyes to prove I was _not _actually dead or comatose, I could see the voice belonged to a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and short trimmed beard.

"Uh, yeah, I'll be fine in a moment..." I winced at the strain in my voice, as if it had been forced past a lump somewhere in my throat. I swallowed and concentrated on taking deep, calm breaths to make that lump go away. Focusing like this cleared my mind some, and I noticed how _awkwardly_ the man was holding me. It reminded me most of how careful Mark, a professor who occasionally joined Aikido practice, would be when practicing with me. Like he was torn between being gentlemanly when practicing with a younger woman and firm like is proper courtesy to your partner.

_Aww, poor guy must be too polite for his own good. No elbow in the ribs then._ Out loud I just asked him if I could have some water, to cover any inappropriate (and ill-advised) urge to laugh. He took it as an opportunity to let go of me (I could sit up under my own power now) and put a more comfortable amount of space between us.

"Can you tell me what a young lady like you is doing out past the barriers all alone like this, miss?" He handed me a rather tarnished and dented canteen, which I accepted eagerly when I heard the water sloshing inside. So what could I tell him? _'I was kidnapped by an egotistical fairy who I proceeded to piss off, and he apparently threw a black hole or something at me while yelling something about worlds...' oh snap._ Taking a longer drink from the canteen for an excuse to look around, I tried to get my bearings.

Before I had assumed I was still by Ontario Lake, maybe just further up the bank and in one of the areas with more trees. Now that I was paying more attention this was clearly a mistaken impression. Instead of a spreading expanse of water lined by pine trees, oaks, maples, ( and assorted other deciduous trees, I think some might have been poplars and sumacs) and enough seagulls to invade a water theme park milling around, I found myself apparently stuck in the middle of a forest. (Similar trees, but a whole lot more of them.) One that looked fairly untouched by humans, with thick trunks and heavy undergrowth threatening to choke off the dirt path I was sitting in.

And my Good Samaritan was still waiting expectantly for an answer. Or for me to jump up and rant crazy nonsense, or just pass out I guess.

So my working assumption was that Nevi had sent me somewhere and worst case scenario was that 'somewhere' was another world. Until I had a better feel for where I was and what's normal here the best story I could give was- "I can't seem to remember very well..." _Good old amnesia excuse!_ "My memory's kinda blurry, and I really can't remember what I was doing last..." I looked around again, being a bit more obvious about it this time. "Can you tell me where we are?"

"We're in a small forest near the Shaikos Ruins. I keep a cottage here so I can study the ruins at my convenience." _Shaikos...haven't I heard that name recently?_ "Not many have a reason to come out here, though, so I rarely see other people. And certainly not young ladies in wet clothing."

"Huh?" Oh right, I'd slipped and fallen in the lake earlier. I must be dazzling him with my sharp conversational skills right now. "Um, I must have fallen into a stream before..."

"There aren't any streams or such within a day's walk." Strike one. Or does that count as two, since I couldn't answer the 'what are you doing here' question?

"I'm sorry, I just can't seem to remember..." I lowered my head, hoping this would be interpreted as me getting emotional over my failure rather than a touch guilty.

"Ah! Don't worry about it, it'll come back to you. For now, you should probably come rest at my place until you're well enough to safely reach the nearest town."

"Nearest town?" Handing back his canteen I made the first attempt to stand up. I staggered a bit, but caught myself before falling down again. The man held my arm to help keep me on my feet.

"That would be Aspio, the City of Scholars." If he hadn't been holding me up I would have fallen down at that. Hearing the name Aspio felt like it froze my blood and wiped all other thoughts from my mind. I knew I recognized that name, and I could remember where I'd heard it now. Aspio was a city in the game Tales of Vesperia, and the Shaikos Ruins were from the same game.

Oh, jeez, I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

But-but even if fairies were involved, they couldn't really have sent me into a fictional world could they? And if they had, then did that mean the characters and plot would continue like in the game? Hell, I didn't even know if I'd shown up years before or after the main story!

Pushing away Good Samaritan's hand, I took a few shaky steps down the path even though I wasn't entirely sure where I meant to go. "Aspio! If I go there..!" I interrupted myself when a wave of vertigo hit me, and I curled up on the ground again. "Ugh."

"Hey, are you okay? You really should rest before going anywhere."

Good Samaritan? Uh, nice as he'd been I couldn't just say "Yeah, let's go back to your place, stranger!" and at the moment I could only think of getting to Aspio and finding familiar ground.

Speaking of ground, why was my face pressed into the dirt. Though it felt nice and cool...but breathing kinda hurt again. I tried to push myself back up, but my body felt so heavy.

I couldn't help but think it was funny how I was blacking out so long after crash landing on Terca Lumireis.

x x x

Well, made it to Vesperia now, but still haven't gotten around to introducing any of the characters. Next chapter maybe? Or the one after that? And yes, I realize my character doesn't even have a name yet.

Bear with me please?


	3. Chapter 3: The Name of a River

Chapter 3: The Name of a River

x x x

I woke up thinking I was on a camping trip.

Seriously, I don't think very clearly when I wake up, and the feel of scratchy woolen blankets paired with staring at a rough wood ceiling convinced me I was in a cabin somewhere.

_Huh...but I left the Girl Scouts some years ago, and I don't remember going to stay in Aunt Bess' cabin. Shouldn't I be in the trailer or one of the tents?_

I rolled over, and then groaned when a massive headache began pounding inside my skull. I suppose most people my age would assume this was proof of a wild night, but I don't drink and therefor don't get hungover.

So I lay there pressing my cool hands to my forehead for some relief, while trying to piece my memories together. I'd been in a forest...so I went hiking yesterday? I'd also just been to a lake-no, that was Lake Ontario and that meant I'd been at school! What was I doing sleeping somewhere besides my dorm, and where did a forest come into the picture?

_...Nevi._

That name rose up seemingly out of nowhere in my confused mind, and then I could remember everything clearly.

Well, Nevi did tell me it was a world I should have some familiarity with. But, dammit, I never actually played Vesperia, I had to settle with watching a play through on Youtube! _Ohh, I'm so glad he didn't decide to stick me in The Legend Of Zelda...the irony alone would have killed me._

So I lay back and tried to organize my thoughts. I needed a plan if I wanted to keep it together. If I had a goal to work towards, I wouldn't break down into hysterics. Not right away at least.

Right, so I was apparently near the Shaikos Ruins and Aspio. I had almost no idea what the world map looked like, but hopefully Good Samaritan had a map handy. Agh, what point of the time line was I in? He'd said something about being outside the barriers...so that should mean I hadn't overshot the game ending, right? Barriers meant blastia still worked... But I could be here early or something. Maybe Raven would still be a young idealist in that war they kept referring to. Or not even born yet.

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, and noticed the tattoo on my left hand. It was weird, I'd assumed it was just black before, but it actually seemed to shift through a spectrum of colors depending on how I turned my hand. Each was just so dark it could be taken as black at a glance...

Right, the fairies sent me here on an errand, so it wasn't really important if I was here during the game events or not. If I found whatever Nevi wanted me to look for, I'd be set and he should send me back home. If I did land in the story line, fine, I'd have the added edge of knowing what was going to happen.

That thought made me pause. I knew what was going to happen...specifically to the Brave Vesperia group. Just looking for something-damn you Nevi for not telling me what-didn't necessarily require following the group around. But it's true they travel and see pretty much the entire world, so what better way to search for something that could be anywhere?

That seemed to settle it. I was going to figure out exactly _when _I was, and if possible hook up with the main characters of the game. Now to deal with my immediate situation.

Samaritan must have been listening outside the door, because the moment I swung my legs onto the floor and caused the bedsprings to creak he came in. It occurred to me that I wasn't sure if he had seen me "arrive" earlier, (which I'm sure looked like me popping into existence from nowhere and being dropped on the ground) or if he'd just missed my grand entrance.

"Are you feeling better, miss?" Redundant question for the sake of breaking the ice!

"Yeah, besides this nasty headache..." He handed me a glass of water, which I took gratefully and sipped at. "Thanks a lot for your help, Samar-uhh." I froze and looked to see if he'd caught that. The raised eyebrow said he had. "Sorry. It's a name from a story I heard a long time ago, and I guess I forgot it wasn't your real name."

"Oh? What was it?"

"Samaritan. Umm, he was somebody who helped a hurt traveler even though he had every reason not to. So he was referred to as the Good Samaritan." I felt my cheeks heat up as I explained this. It sounded pretty half-hearted without explaining the biblical significance, but it wasn't like he'd understand bible references anyway. The man just smiled at me. _Hmm, there was more salt than pepper in his hair than I'd thought before, so maybe he's in his fifties?_ He was also tall and in good shape for his age, with muscles that looked like he'd been very fit as a young man.

"Very appropriate. Actually, my name is really Ludwig. I apologize for not properly introducing myself before, and I take no offense at you naming me Good Samaritan." He took the glass from me and set it on a nearby table. "May I ask your name?"

"Oh, my name is-" I stopped with my mouth hanging open. I apparently had a fairy spying on me, and according to any number of old superstitions, from multiple cultures nonetheless, if someone knows your real name it gives them power over you. I had no idea if Nevi knew my name or not, but on the chance that he didn't I'd hate to have given it away myself. While I was here I should use a fake name, but nothing would come to my mind spur of the moment. "Uh..."

"Let me guess, you don't remember that either?" I hung my head and nodded. Well, let's keep running with the amnesia excuse if he's still willing to believe it. Samaritan-I mean Ludwig-patted my shoulder. "Don't let it bother you. We'll just think of something else to call you for now." I looked up at him with a weak smile, which he returned encouragingly. "How about this, I'll name you after a story _I _heard when I was a boy?"

"Fair's fair, I suppose, Mr. Samaritan," we both laughed. Then he looked up and around while humming thoughtfully.

"Hmm, come to think of it, you were all wet when I found you, even though there was no water around. Pair that with your memory loss and it reminds me of the River of Oblivion." That sounded familiar to me, but I was pretty sure I'd never heard it mentioned in the game before. "The Letha River supposedly makes anyone who drinks it waters forget things. Ghosts that do not drink from it are trapped in this world by their lingering attachments." He looked back to me.

"I've never actually seen such a river, but finding it would make for an interesting adventure. Maybe you found it and fell in, and that's why you were all wet and so forgetful, little Letha." I stared at him before I realized what he'd called me, and then giggled.

"I don't know if I fell into your river or just got caught in a freak localized rain storm, but I like the sound of that name. Thank you." He smiled at me, but a little sadly I thought. Huh, wasn't sure what made me think that though.

Clearing his throat, he narrowed his eyes at me suddenly. "Now that we're on a first name basis with each other, Letha, I'd like you to explain something to me." He then reached out and placed something on the bed beside me. Looking down, I felt my blood go cold and brain wipe itself blank again. I really wasn't getting any fonder of that feeling.

Lying on the blanket was actually a number of things: my mp3 player and the tangle of ear buds still plugged in, the extra batteries I always carried with it, my wallet with my student ID smiling up through the plastic, the sleek silver cellphone my parents had bought me, and finally the keychain with my room keys.

"Er, uh, I don't remember what..." The words died before I got them all out as I caught the look he was giving me.

"Letha. You say you can't even remember your own name, but you remember an obscure story you once heard? Forgive me for saying so, but you're hiding something."

"I'm sorry, but I really can't tell you." Ludwig stared at me hard, as if willing me to talk, but I could only look down and fidget with the blanket caught in my hands. It was pretty twisted when I finally heard him sigh.

"Alright Letha, you don't have to tell me if you really don't want to. But is there anything you _will _tell me?"

I nodded. He'd been pretty good to me, so I figured I should try to pay him back for that somehow. Good karma and all that. Which reminded me, I have no idea what dogma means. Other than the fact that it was off topic and unrelated to my situation. "I'm not really sure how I got here, but I know my home is very far away. I'm here because I need to look for something, and I suppose this is as good a place to start as anywhere." I clenched my left hand and studied how the tattoo shifted from dark blue to dark green. "I really don't have much information about it, just that I should know it when I find it, and that I need it before I can go home."

All perfectly true. Funny thing, I'm uncomfortable lying to people, though I can and probably have plenty of times, but if something is true it doesn't bother me how much I left out.

I was still staring at the blanket, tracing the simple pattern woven into the green-dyed wool. So it startled me and I flinched when a hand descended on my head and mussed up my hair. "Ack!" My arms flew up to bat the offending hand away and try to defend my head before I could even think of what I was doing. No one had done that to me for years, the only person who tried was my oldest brother, and I normally managed to block him before he got close enough.

"It's alright kid, I believe you don't mean any bad." "_Kid?" What happened to "Miss" and "young lady" and all those other names?_ Maybe the pitiful child-caught-stealing-from-the-cookie-jar drama earlier made him decide I wasn't all that mature yet. That could be it, a world like Terca Lumireis would probably force its children to mature a bit faster than the typical American teen in order to cope with some harsh realities. In comparison I might not be "acting my age."

While I'd been mulling this over Ludwig had kept talking. "So I get you're going to have to travel around a bit once you leave. You're bound to run into more questions like this and not everyone will be as ready to leave your secrets be." I nodded, glumly. I couldn't keep up the amnesia act long, especially if I fell in with a group while traveling, Brave Vesperia or otherwise. Acting is not my forte. But I wasn't looking forward to trying to make up a story that would hold up to close inspection.

Apparently, Ludwig was thinking along the same lines. "You know...this might not be the best solution, but I've been living out here alone for many years now, and, hmm." He must have noticed the sidelong look I gave him as I was wondering if the Good Samaritan had some weird motives. He cleared his throat and tried again. "What I mean to say is, you could tell people that you're my niece."

"Come again, now?" Was he actually blushing?

"Well, I don't get many visitors, and never went to town for anything other than errands. Nobody still alive knows much of anything about my family, so they'd believe me if I claimed to have a niece I'd never mentioned. Odd habits of an eccentric living in the woods and all that." He waved a hand to show how easily his "odd habits" would be dismissed. "So you can just say you're my younger brother's daughter.

"You've lived alone with me most of your life, so that can cover any holes in what you know about other towns and current events. Don't hear much out here after all. Hmm, we can work out any other important details while you're recovering." He paused for a moment, before saying, "You can rest here as long as you need even if you say no. I won't mind a little extra company." I nodded slowly and then smiled brightly at him.

"You really are a Good Samaritan, 'Uncle' Ludwig!" I teased as I threw my arms around him in a quick hug.

He totally blushed again.

x x x

It turned out I'd been unconscious for most of a day. At home it had probably been around ten in the evening when I'd been ambushed by Nevi, but I'd dropped into the world of Tales of Vesperia around mid-morning. Meaning it was nearly night again and I'd already gotten more than enough sleep. So to burn restless energy I followed 'Uncle' Ludwig out of my bedroom (actually a guest bedroom, I don't know why an eccentric hermit would have one but I'm not complaining) and over to his rustic kitchen.

He offered to cook me a meal, but I only trusted myself to eat some bread and fruit. Oh Lord, how I loved Ludwig's bread. I demanded he teach me how to bake it before I left. We talked while I ate, mostly about him so I could play his niece convincingly. Apparently, even if he didn't go out much and had few visitors, there were still quite a few people who remembered him. In his heyday Ludwig was quite the respectable traveler. So it was a real possibility I could run into someone who recognized his name, and I didn't want to be called out as an impostor.

I asked about the slight limp I had just noticed he walked with, a topic I'd normally avoid bringing up but in this case I figured family would be expected to know about. That's how I learned that he used to be a member of a guild. Just a small one, its main purpose had been as bodyguards and escorts for travelers between towns. He met his late wife that way, apparently she'd been a researcher in Aspio and he'd been hired to protect her while she worked on a field assignment.

"I built this cottage for the two of us when we got married. Sophia was interested in studying the Shaikos Ruins to see if there were any clues why the blastia had been buried. When she passed away I didn't have the heart to move back to any of the cities, so I quit the guild and stayed here by myself."

"How did she, um, die?" Another question I really didn't think I should ask, but did anyway.

"You don't need to know that." He snapped, and then sighed at my poorly hidden wince. "It was very painful for me, I was away on guild business at the time. It happened when you were still too young to remember, and that's all you'll need to know if anyone asks." I nodded.

He waved his hand to indicate the cottage in general as he said, "You'll find shelves of books everywhere. They all belonged to her. Feel free to look through them." I'd like to point out here that Tales of Vesperia uses a different writing system. Or else Ludwig would have been able to read my real name on my Student ID card. If things were the same as in the game, it would still follow English spelling, but I'd have to figure out what the new alphabet looked like. Hopefully I could puzzle it out without asking for my new Uncle's help. Helpful and accepting as he was, I still didn't want to do anything that would emphasize my oddness any more than it had been.

The other issue between us was my clothes.

Funny, at home my parents never took issue with how I dressed. Rather, for years Mom had tried to get me comfortable with wearing lower necklines and even picked out clothing from Hot Topic for my Christmas present once. Not to give the wrong impression, she's also responsible for the most feminine and tasteful pieces in my wardrobe too. I'm her dress up doll. The only point she and Ludwig had in common was their wish for me to wear dresses.

I was wearing one of my favorite casual outfits for temperate weather. I wore this fitted black top, sort of like a real long tank top, with adjustable straps and an extra layer of material to discreetly help support the, um, chest. Not that I have anything particularly impressive there, so Ludwig really didn't need to get so worked up over how it wanted to show a touch of cleavage (seriously, back home it wouldn't have upset anyone but the most uptight spinster). Not like I wasn't wearing anything under it...and over it I had a sleeveless vest made of very light denim. Normally I leave that to hang open, but I'd buttoned it up to compromise with Ludwig's sensibilities.

My pants were a slightly darker shade of blue, cargo styled jeans that were very loose with several large pockets. Hand me downs, fraying at a few seams and worn at the permanently dirt stained heels. Which, surprisingly, were not sneakers for once. My sneakers leak something terrible if I so much as step in a puddle so I had decided to play it safe at the lake and wear one of my pair of dress boots. This sounds like a contradiction, but I'm serious. They're made of some weird water repellent material, with thick rubber heels (that add roughly an inch to my five foot four height) and are remarkably sturdy.

Ah, I also had my denim jacket which I'd left back on the bed. Nothing really special about that, accept for the small silver star my godmother had somehow fixed to the upper right pocket.

All in all, nothing really trendy but not so unusual for a girl my age. I didn't expect it would fit in with Vesperian culture (ugh, I hate the name Terca Lumir-whatever, it's too long) but it's not _that_ bad a culture shock!

"I'm not gonna wear Sophia's old dresses, Ludwig!"

"Can't you change into this one? She only wore this one once before she died!" He held up a green and brown dress.

"No, Ludwig, I don't have a problem with used clothes, I have a problem with wearing dresses!" I'll wear one if I really need to, but that means for a very formal event. There was no way I'd wear a dress while traveling and, I'd have to assume, fighting monsters.

"But you can't keep wearing that, it's improper for a young lady!" Yeah, I merit "young lady" again, though this would probably be short lived once I won the dress argument. And I _would_ win. It's not like Ludwig could forcibly dress me up, he was far too much of a gentleman to do that. I seriously think he'd faint if he saw my bra.

After much pointless back and forth bickering he gave up after extracting my solemn promise to buy more "suitable clothes" at the first opportunity. I agreed, fully intending to keep my promise, figuring that if I hated the clothes I could buy new ones at the next opportunity and sell the others.

Next we fought about fighting.

For some reason this was the easier of the two arguments. He did not like the idea when I asked him to teach me to fight, but was reasonable enough. He knew as well as I did how dangerous traveling would be, and traveling alone would be suicidal if I didn't know how to defend myself. Although he protested that I could hire guards or find some imperial knights willing to escort me I could tell his heart wasn't in it.

Instead we argued about when to start lessons. I was all for having the first lesson in the morning, but he insisted on waiting a few days until I'd recovered more. I won't admit to losing that argument, rather call it a draw and we decided it would depend on how I was feeling after more sleep. Which was the point where Ludwig shooed me back towards my room with the admonishment to go to bed.

I was nearly through the door when I smacked a hand to my head. "Uncle Ludwig?" He grunted in acknowledgment, looking back at me from the door of his own room. "I feel pretty silly for not asking this before, but what's your last name?"

"Oh, I'm surprised I forgot that. My family name is Vitae. So that would make me Ludwig Vitae and you Letha Vitae." He hid a yawn behind a hand. "Is there anything else?"

"Ah, no, that's all thanks. Good night."

"Sleep well, Letha."

I sat down on my bed, thinking. Vitae was latin, and meant "life" or something very close. So that meant my new name was roughly "forgetful life," or maybe "forgets life."

"I just love being strange, don't I?"

x x x

Vitae: vee-tahy (apparently "ahy" is how the dictionary demonstrates that something sounds like "eye")

Letha's name is referring to the Greek legend about the River Lethe. There is also a real river with that name. Let's not confuse them.

Ludwig, besides being a famous composer, is a name that means something along the lines of "famous warrior." Pure coincidence, I swear. The name (like with Nevys) just came to me as right.

No Main Characters in sight yet! Maybe next chapter? (Please don't hurt me)


	4. Chapter 4: For Your Information

Chapter 4: For Your Information

x x x

For once I woke up early on my own. Must have been thanks to all the sleep I'd gotten involuntarily the day before. Normally I'm a real night owl and lash out at anyone who tries to wake me up before I'm good and ready.

Ludwig was still up before me though, and I found him cooking breakfast in the kitchen. I spent the entire meal pestering him to help me practice fighting. He gave in with some exasperated grumbling about how if I had so much breath to spare nagging him I was probably recovered enough for some light exercise.

For weapons it seemed Ludwig favored switching between a jian and a dao. Both are types of Chinese swords I've seen used in martial arts movies. Since we'd probably have only a couple of weeks for me to learn, Ludwig decided I'd do best to learn to use a pair of daggers. I was a little disappointed, I've had a little practice with wooden swords in Aikido (and my high school fencing club, but that doesn't count much) and would have liked to continue. But I hadn't taken enough of the weapons work classes to justify more swords training as effective, and daggers were better suited for a beginner.

We were practicing in the small yard behind his house. It seemed his house was right in front of a cliff, right between two arms of rock. This prevented any monsters from attacking the back of the cottage, and in front was a sturdy fence. That didn't look like much to me at first, but then he explained to me that the fence also served the purpose of a physical reminder of where he'd set traps.

Ha, the best part of practice was when Ludwig first disarmed me, and I surprised him with katatetori iikyo omote. I'd describe it as a counter to a grab or overhead strike where you catch hold of the attacker's attacking arm before they have enough momentum and force to hurt you. Then you, well, walk past them, though there's more to it than that. If you know what you're doing, you're opponent will find himself lying face down on the ground and not sure how he got there.

Ludwig was pretty surprised, and I almost wished I didn't have to tell him that I was only a beginner and none of the techniques I knew would help me against monsters. Aikido would be ineffective against anything that didn't have the same body structure as a human. So we decided to leave Aikido counters for a fall back plan and went back to the weapon lessons.

I'd thought the lessons were going well, but late in the afternoon I had another attack where my lungs refused to work properly. Unable to stay on my feet, I knelt on the ground shakily. Although I didn't pass out again my vision was swimming with black dots. I didn't even realize Ludwig had moved me until my head cleared and I found myself sitting in the shade with my back against a tree.

He came back with water drawn from the well on the other side of the yard, and he was frowning at me. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling better?"

"But I was! I wa-was just fine until-until a few minutes before." I had to stop and catch my breath to get the words out, and gulped down the water Ludwig gave me. "I really don't know what's wrong. I haven't had trouble just trying to-to _breathe_ before!"

He grimaced. "In any case, that's enough practice for today. You should-hey, Letha!"

_Ugh, good night again..._

x x x

This happened several times over the next few days. Just when it seemed I'd recovered my strength again, I'd be hit with another wave of sickness, sometimes fainting and other times just managing to ride it out. After keeping me confined to my room for a few days and seeing no obvious improvement in my condition, Ludwig gave up trying to keep me bed ridden and allowed me to practice whenever I was feeling up to it. I even talked him into letting me practice with his swords every now and then.

When I could I'd help him out with household chores, and when stuck in bed I read from Sophia's books. Most of them seemed to be about research and history, which I just couldn't get into, but I wanted to make sure I had plenty of practice reading the Vesperian writing. ...Tercan writing. Whatever.

Some days while I stayed in bed, Ludwig would leave on his own business. He wouldn't tell me what he was doing, or rather he'd only tell me he was getting supplies or running errands deeper in the forest (I don't know, I guess that was supposed to mean resetting traps, hunting, or getting firewood), but I didn't believe that was all he was doing. I decided not to make a big deal about it though, if he was letting me keep my own secrets, I should leave him his. I was already getting big parts of his life story out of him after all.

Speaking of which, those conversations were more equal sided than that first night. He started working his own questions in, small ones I didn't think twice about answering but which a person could draw a lot of information from. Before I realized it he knew that I was the youngest child, had two older brothers I respected and got along well with, and parents I loved dearly. He even found out about some of my pets and friends, though I'm positive I never used anyone's name.

When I caught on to his game, I scolded him and gave him another hug for revenge. After that I made sure to tell him something about myself every time he answered one of my questions, to keep things fair and to be sure I hadn't accidentally told him something suspicious.

Nearly two weeks passed this way before Nevys showed up again. I was not happy to see him.

"How much time to you intend to waste in this...establishment, _Letha_?" Already off on the wrong foot for so many reasons. "My associates and I are concerned about the well being of our heirloom."

"Well then you all should have taken better care of it." I put down the book I'd been puzzling through. Ludwig had left on one of his errands and shouldn't be back for awhile, so I wasn't worried he'd come in and find me talking with a (very strange) stranger. "Besides, if I'd started searching right off the bat and had one of those black outs a monster would have eaten me, and then where would you be?"

Now I turned to glare in my seat at the fairy man. "Actually that's something I was hoping to talk to you about. What is _up _with me getting sick all at once like that? What else did you do to me back then?"

"Hnph. Your health issues have nothing to do with me. Perhaps you caught a local bug. Recover your strength quickly and get on with your duty."

I growled at him, "And that's another thing you need to explain. _How_ the _hell_ do you expect me to know where to find that thing? You won't even tell me what it looks like, and only say this tattoo will let me know! How does that work?"

With a long suffering sigh he reached out and grabbed my left hand again. I angrily jerked back away, but didn't seriously try to break his grip. "Do you really expect we'll give information on the heirloom to outsiders so easily? One of the reasons we marked our searchers was to avoid the leaking of intelligence while ensuring it could be accurately identified."

He held up my hand so I could clearly see the tattoo. "My mark will react when you're in the same area as the heirloom. Though the area may be as large as a town, or as small as a single building. It rather depends, and the factors that effect it may vary." With one finger he pressed at the center of the tattoo. I gasped as it suddenly grew warm. The colors changed from their near black shades to a shifting red and orange glow. "This means you are near. And _this_ means you've found it." My hand grew warmer and the glow became bright white and sky blue. "The mark will react such when you are within arms distance of the heirloom. It will cease to glow once you've claimed it, and I'll come to retrieve you and the heirloom."

_So, I'm playing a massive version of the Hot-Cold game. Wonderful._

"What if I don't find your heirloom anywhere? Will I have to keep searching until I die?"

"It is a very real possibility that our heirloom isn't even in this world. We have dispatched human searchers to several worlds, in fact. But it is unlikely the heirloom is somewhere inaccessible to humans, though it my still be difficult to find. If we judge you have searched all possible locations in this world, we'll send you somewhere else to look."

"Wait, what? You're telling me that even if I take years and look everywhere in Terca Lumireis, if I don't find the whatever-it-is you'll just make me start over somewhere else?" I began fingering one of the daggers Ludwig had given me, wishing I didn't need Nevi in order to get home. He noticed my gesture and smirked, clearly guessing what was going through my head.

"Well of course! If you manage to survive that long then clearly you're one of our more successful searchers. We can't let such a useful tool go before finding what we're looking for." He stood up and favored me with one last charming smirk before _disintegrating_ in a flurry of sparkling gold lights.

I groaned and dropped my head in my hands. "Oh God, Flutterbrain is a drama queen. He's worse than Jareth from _Labyrinth_."

x x x

"Gonna hug ya one last time before I go!" I promptly followed through on my threat, giving the older man a tight bear hug (well, as much as you can call it a bear hug when the other person is over half a foot taller than you). He was still a bit uncomfortable with being hugged, but he mussed my hair in return. I was going to miss him, I was sure, but my weak spells had been getting a lot less frequent and weren't so intense anymore. _If I don't leave now, I might never work up the nerve to get started._

"Do you have everything?"

"Yup!" I patted the daggers sheathed on separate belts around my waist, and hefted the bag of supplies Ludwig put together for me onto my shoulder.

"So...this is goodbye." He was trying to hide it, but I'm sure just saying those words made him feel lonely. What I'd learned about him during my stay convinced me that he didn't want to cut himself off from people, he just couldn't bear to leave the home where he'd been so happy with Sophia. If I thought he'd listen to me, I would have tried to convince him to move back into one of the cities. Maybe Halure, I think he could be happy there. But I couldn't find the words to tell him that.

Instead, I ducked my head and said, "If you don't mind, I could come by and visit again. Whenever I'm in the area." I smiled a bit shyly at him. "You were a pretty cool uncle, you know."

That got a smile out of him. "Feel free to drop by anytime. Also, I have one last thing to give you." Without any more explanation, he turned and limped into his room, leaving me fidgeting by the door trying to decide if I should follow. I settled for just looking in and watching him from the door frame.

He was unlocking a drawer in the desk by the window, but I couldn't see what he took out of it at first. When he turned he held it up for me to see and I sucked in a surprised breath.

"Is that-?" It was beautiful hair clip, carved like a pair of spread wings, with a shining red jewel set in the center.

"Yes, a bodhi blastia." He smiled fondly at it. "Actually, I haven't needed to use one for a long time. The monsters here don't pose much danger to me anymore. But this one belonged to Sophia." He held it out to me, "I believe she would have liked you to have it."

"But I-I couldn't possibly!" I could only protest as he placed it in my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. The metal felt cool and I could feel the details of the feathers.

"You're as much her niece as you are mine. She probably would have loved to help you with your journey, and encouraged you to learn everything you could." I couldn't think of any appropriate response to that. "If you still feel guilty for taking it, just make sure you use it and the skills I taught you to help people while you travel." I nodded and smiled. That sounded like such a typical line for an RPG, but it still meant a lot to me.

I reached up and clipped the bodhi blastia to the base of my braid, a few inches above my right ear, making sure it was secure in my thick hair. Not trusting myself to speak, I just nodded again and hoped that actions were speaking louder than the words I couldn't say.

Oh, there was something I could say.

"Thank you, Uncle Ludwig, and Aunt Sophia too."

And then I left, hoping I would live to come see him again.

x x x

The first stop on my list was-Aspio! Did you think that? Logical, logical. But some nagging feeling had me looking over in the direction of the ruins instead. Well I was already so close, and it would suck if I was way early and had to make another trip back here on my own. I wished I had some way of knowing beforehand...

Waitaminute-waitaminute-waitaminute-

"Nevi? You can hear me right? I am pretty damn sure you can hear me! Can you come here and answer a couple of questions for me?" Not knowing what else to do, I had started talking to the tattoo on my hand. I tried not to think of how ridiculous and mentally unstable this probably looked.

So far it wasn't working... "Oi, NEVI! If you want me to do this job properly, then you'd better tell me a few things! You want that heirloom back sooner rather than later, right?"

There were a few snaps like firecrackers and Nevys was back and looking pretty irritated. "Let us get something straight, I'm not a bloody information booth you can summon whenever you feel like it!" If I had to make a guess, I'd interrupted something fairly important. That or he still remembered the Legend of Zelda comment from before.

"Right, I'll try not to abuse you too often." He bristled, but settled for glaring at me with crossed arms and tapping foot. So impatient to get on with things. "Right, so there's only a couple of questions I wanted to ask. You already knew I was familiar with this world, so that means you know about the game Tales of Vesperia, right?"

"Yes, more or less...though to a lesser extent than you humans who create and 'play' these 'games'." I swear that must have been the first time he ever had to use those words, or at least the first time in this context. "This world is perfectly real if that's what you're going to-" he broke off this tirade when I shook my head. "Then your point is?"

"Right, I want to know if I'm actually in the time period covered in the video game's storyline, and if so whether the main characters have started forming their group yet. If they have, where are they right now?"

"Hnph." Hate that sound. Hate it with a passion~ But I kept my thoughts to myself and tried to wait patiently while Nevi considered whether he was going to answer or not. "Actually, I believe you were brought here a short time before events began, although your period of convalescence has delayed you to a point not long after the young man and princess left the castle." Well whaddaya know, it's like a fanfiction dream! "Hmm, in fact, I'd say if your plan is to join with them it would be advisable to intercept them in those ruins over that way." He gestured towards the Shaikos Ruins. Huh, intuition for the win! "Now if that is all?"

"Er, yeah, you can go back to whatever you were doing."

"_So_ glad to have your permission." And he was gone in another dervish of golden lights that I think was larger than last time. _I wonder if he does that to annoy me?_

I felt incredibly reassured now that I knew for sure that I had the game events to look forward to. Although it would be bad to assume that everything would be just like the game.

The ruins were really nearby, so I ran into only one group of monsters on the way. A small swarm of monster wasps, I don't know what they're called, which I fortunately heard coming.

"Agh, don't choke, don't think, just move!" Even back in Aikido I knew one of my biggest faults was I'd try to think too much about what I was supposed to do. I couldn't afford that anymore since there were no chances to just do something over.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and moved away, my feel sliding through some basic Aikido foot work, and I slashed reflexively at the wasp monster that was now in front of me. My dagger didn't cut as deeply as I'd like, but as the wasp fell to the ground I followed it down and stabbed it with my other dagger to finish it off.

Another wasp tried to dive at me and I jumped back. To my surprise I flew back farther than I'd anticipated, though not by much, and I took the opportunity to rush forward and slash again at the remaining wasps that had yet to catch up with my sudden dodge.

The fight was over almost as soon as it started, and I could only stand in place while shaking with the realization that I'd had my first fight and lived. "Uh," I grunted and dropped down to sit on the grass. Idly I wiped the daggers off with a rag from my bag before returning them to my belts. "That wasn't so bad."

From where I was sitting I was pretty close to the Shaikos Ruins, and while waiting for my nerves to calm down again I studied them. I don't know much about architecture, but I thought the ruins were impressive from an aesthetic point of view. They would be an interesting subject for a painting, if only I had the materials and the time.

While I mused over the probability of having a chance to come back with canvas, or if I could even find acrylic paints in a world that doesn't refine oil or use plastics, who should emerge from the ruins but Flynn Scifo and his company of knights.

"Oh wow, this feels weird." Since I was still seated on the ground, and not right in front of the ruins, none of them saw me gawking at the blond knight, or his red headed (*_cough_* fangirl *_cough_*) lieutenant, or the little mage who was part of the group almost as an after thought. For a moment I considered seeing if I could join Flynn, but no. _Flynn doesn't have as much freedom, he has to follow orders and the Empire's laws. Yuri and his friends aren't nearly as limited in their movements, and see more of the world than Flynn. Stick with your first plan, Letha._

I crouched down in the grass, hoping they wouldn't notice me. Flynn was such a nice guy, if he met a girl traveling alone he'd probably insist on escorting me to the nearest city or something. I needed to be in those ruins, not putting up with knightly babysitters.

Even once they'd left I waited in place for awhile, to be sure there were no stragglers or anything. When my patience had finally worn thin enough, I brushed off my pants and walked into the ruins. It took a bit of looking around, but I eventually found the statue of a winged woman holding an urn that I vaguely remembered. I climbed up onto the pedestal, and settled in behind her skirt to wait for company.

x x x

The hours dragged by, and I was tempted to use my mp3 player to kill time, but decided against it to conserve the batteries. At some point it had occurred to me that it would really suck if Yuri and the others came to the ruins tomorrow or something, and I got stuck out here all night. I just decided to trust that Nevi would have told me to meet them in Aspio if that was the case. Totally ignoring the possibility that he'd set me up for a cold night as revenge for calling him.

When they did show up, I was trying to distract myself with breathing exercises, and at first I'd thought I'd fallen asleep and dreamed that they'd _finally _come.

"I see. So first you get us alone in the dark, then you zap us, huh?" _Oh, hooray for Yuri's sarcastic humor! I never loved it as much as I did now!_

"...Hmm, 'ZAP.' I like the way that sounds..." _ Rita sounds serious...she probably is._

"H-hey, what was that supposed to mean? Why are you smiling like that?" _Captain Karol is accounted for..._

"Let's try to get along now, okay?" _ And there's our beloved princess, Estelle. Er, I should probably make sure I call her Estellise until she introduces herself otherwise. Actually, I shouldn't call any of them by name at first in case I accidentally jump the gun._

I listened as their footsteps came closer to my hiding place, wondering if it would give a bad first impression for them to discover me there. Ah well, too late to worry about that.

"Looks like no one's here... No Imperial Knights, thieves, or anyone else!"

"Maybe they're further in?"

"Or maybe they just left." I piped up. Oh, my stomach felt funny, all fluttery with nerves.

"Aah! Who's there?" I couldn't help but smile at how Karol jumped. Did he think I was a ghost or something since he couldn't see me?

"Just me, one harmless girl." I stood up so that they could see me, holding out my empty hands. Estelle and Karol both seemed too surprised by my appearance to do anything, Repede was growling at me, and Yuri looked calm, but since his reaction was the one I worried about most I noted him tense slightly. Rita would be a lot more obvious if she was planning to blast me.

It was Rita who made the first move after all, "What are you doing here? Are you one of those thieves?" Oh crap, she was powering up a fireball.

"Woah! I'm not a thief, calm down!"

"Then what are you doing here?" Yuri, the voice of reason! Ugh, I hadn't thought of a reason to tell them.

"Uh, I'm just a traveler, you see? I wanted to see what the Shaikos Ruins were like, that's all!"

"Is that so. Looks to me like you were waiting for someone." He's perceptive too. But I couldn't very well say that I'd been waiting for them to show up! Think fast...

"Actually, I had an aunt who was really interested in these ruins. She used to come study them. I was just thinking about her, trying to figure out what it must have felt like..." My hand raised up to finger the blastia hair clip. _Aunt Sophia, huh...I actually do wonder why you were interested in the ruins and buried blastia. Wish I'd asked Ludwig._

"I see!" Oh, that was Estelle. I didn't expect her to chime in yet. "You're waiting to meet your aunt! Is she coming soon?"

"No, she died when I was little."

"Oh! I'm sorry..." Poor Estelle looked so concerned that she might have, I dunno, crushed my heart or something. I'd probably either really like her as if she were a younger sister, or get really annoyed with her... _If_ I managed to join them.

"Nah, don't worry about it. I kinda guess I was waiting for her, in some weird spiritual way, though I didn't expect anyone to actually come." I looked around at them. "Actually, I wasn't the first one here. I saw a group of people leaving not long before I got here."

"Really? Were they knights?" The "ace" of the Hunting Blades got over his fear that I might be a ghost...

"Um, I'm not really sure," _I lie, yes I do_, "I wasn't close enough to see." Estelle visibly wilted a bit at that. I swear, that dress of hers reminds me of an overturned flower. "Though there might still be more people further in, I haven't looked around very hard for the entrance yet." And now she brightened up again.

"How far are we talking here?" I just shrugged at Yuri. Can't tell him I'm standing on the way in.

"How did you know that the ruins go further?" The smaller girl was glaring up at me, that made me nervous. "Does that mean the information about the underground has gotten out?"

"Hmm? I dunno, but I heard that my aunt was positive that there was a way in. She never found it on her own, though."

"The underground?" Estelle questioned us.

"Recently, an entrance to an underground area was uncovered here. A handful of mages are supposed to be the only people who know about it..."

"But it's okay for us to know this?" Yuri leaned back against a wall. _Good, he's concentrating on Rita again so I guess he doesn't see me as a threat_.

"I don't have much choice if I'm to clear my name, do I?"

Rita walked away as Yuri mumbled to himself, "Clear your name, huh..."

_Mmm, why does that give me a bad premonition?_

I watched as Rita and Karol studied the ground and noticed scratch marks where the statue had been moved recently. When the boy started pushing against it I jumped down to the ground as Yuri moved up to help. Could the two of them really move that huge statue on their own? _Hell, Yuri's only using one hand!_

Hell, they really did move it! And they even did it without falling down the stairs hidden underneath! The game cuts away so you don't see how they managed that, and the logistics of it had bothered me before.

As Karol huffed and gasped to catch his breath, and Yuri more quietly did the same, Rita boldly stepped up to the hole stating, "Okay, here we go."

"Wait!"

They all turned to look at me. Ohh, I hate being the center of attention, I felt awkward. "Um, mind if I come with you guys?"

"Why should we let you? You'll probably just get in the way." Ouch, Rita.

"Is it because of your aunt?" Oh, thank you princess for the opening! I nodded to them.

"Well, I don't really mind at all."

"Oh so you'll trust a stranger you just met more than me." Rita huffed at the swordsman angrily.

"Never said I trusted her. It would be safer to keep her nearby so we can keep an eye on her in case she's working with the thieves."

"D-do you really think she's a thief, Yuri?" Karol stared at me with shock.

"Meh, sure, I'm a thief. I go around stealing people's time with random conversation." I winked at Karol. "Be careful or I might steal a whole hour from you before you even realize it."

That got me some weird looks, but Yuri also chuckled a bit. "Well now that that's settled, let's go."

x x x

Oh my God! Finally meeting the characters! I thought it went well?

Um, the Aikido move? Well, there's just too much going on in one technique for it to be summed up easily, and it wasn't a big enough scene to justify further description. Right now I'm just trying to get it out there that Letha knows a few hand to hand techniques so they won't come out of the blue later on. And an important note about Aikido: it's _purely_ for self-defense. (Or at least it is in the club and dojo I go to.) Everything has to be instigated by an attacker, and it's designed to defend yourself or neutralize an attacker without hurting anyone. (Apparently a sore muscle or wrist doesn't count as "hurting.")

Not to say Letha is unaggressive...


	5. Chapter 5: Golem, Not Gollum!

Thank you, AccessBlade, for reviewing!

I wasn't planning on uploading this chapter yet, but I can't sleep...

As an added bonus, here's a quick, kinda crappy drawing of what Letha looks like! http:/ /sylphwriter. /#/d32qbrn

Letha: Holy Bread! I've been digitalized!

Sylph: What the heck? "Holy Bread?"

Letha: ...I thought "Oh My GOD" is kinda overused.

Sylph: ...Am I really as strange as you?

x x x

Chapter 5: Golem, Not Gollum!

x x x

"This is my first time going inside ruins..." _Ah, Estelle, you've truly been missing out on the finer things in life!_ Well, really, the way she said that was almost as if it's something most people do all the time. Or maybe that's just me...

"Be careful over there. It's slippery." Rita noticed Yuri staring at her. "What are you looking at?"

"I was just surprised. You're actually a nice person."

She sighed, "I knew it would be a pain to bring you along. I should've just come by myself..." Hearing them say lines I knew from the game was kinda creepy. I stopped paying attention while Estelle began pestering the mage about her research.

It really was rather impressive, rather like being on one of those guided tours of natural caverns but more...exciting. I guess it was because this wasn't a safe tourist attraction.

"Hey, hurry up or we'll leave you behind!"

"Ah, sorry!" I rushed to catch up with them again. When I did, I noticed Estelle was looking at me. "Um, can I help you?"

"I wanted to ask what your name is, I don't believe you've introduced yourself yet."

"Oh, I guess we did kinda skip the introductions. I'm Letha. Letha Vitae." The unfamiliar name felt strange in my mouth, but at least I didn't slip up saying it.

"Pleased to meet you! My name is Estellise, but I'd like it if you called me Estelle." I smiled at her. _Still pushing to be called by your new nickname, I see._

"I'm Karol! An ace member of the Hunting Blades!" _Isn't Karol supposed to be a tank in battles? How can a twelve year old boy, and a coward to boot, have more raw strength than anyone else in the group?_

"The Hunting Blades? I don't think I've heard much about them before..." I had decided to play dumb to work with the persona of a girl raised in the woods. I turned to Yuri and Rita who were leading our little party. "Karol called you 'Yuri' before, right?" _Oh, jeez, it's gonna be hard to keep a straight face whenever I say his name, isn't it? Damn the corruptive influence of the internet!_

"Yeah, that's right. And this over here is Repede." Repede whined a bit and walked past me. "Don't worry, he's usually like that." I just shrugged to show it didn't bother me. It would be great if Repede liked me, but I knew better than to try to force it. "Over there is the genius blastia thief, Rita Mordio."

"Hey, don't give me a weird introduction like that, I'm not a thief!"

I scratched my head and said, "Well he's already called me a thief, so I wouldn't have taken him at his word." I shrugged and added for good measure, "For all I know you're all thieves and I've been taken prisoner."

"I'm surprised you're not angry about that." I shrugged again at Karol.

"Well it makes sense not to trust someone you just met, and if you guys are looking for thieves I can't blame you for wanting to be careful." Really, I was just glad that they let me come with them. It would be amazing luck if I could find the fairy-heirloom-thing here in the ruins, but I never would have managed to search them on my own.

So thinking, I glanced at my tattoo. It remained stubbornly dark and I sighed as I followed the others. Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

x x x

_**Searching the Ruins**_

_Estelle: These ruins feel very different once you're inside them._

_Karol: Yeah, it's weird. And there's all this stuff I've never seen before..._

_Yuri: What, is this your first time too, Karol?_

_Karol: Well, yeah. My specialty's monster hunting. Hey, what do you think this is?_

_Rita: You really shouldn't be fooling around over there. This place is loaded with traps._

_Estelle: Did anyone else just hear a click?_

_Yuri: Karol, watch out!_

_*Yuri pushes Karol*_

_Karol: Waaaah!_

_Yuri: Sorry, I thought you were about to get killed. I overdid it._

_Karol: I think I would have been better off getting caught in the trap..._

x x x

We were attacked by some weird blue...tadpole looking things. I had the nagging feeling that I'd seen a pokemon that looked like that. Wanting to make sure I was pulling my weight (so they wouldn't ditch me at the first opportunity) I ran into battle right behind Yuri.

He rushed in without hesitation, slashing away at a monster before it even had a chance to react. I wasn't as fast, but those tadpoles weren't very intimidating just bouncing there. In a few moments we had dealt with all of them.

"That...was easier than I was expecting-"

"Letha, look out!" I spun around to see more tadpole creatures, but with arms and legs, attacking from behind.

"Woah, shi-!" Aikido instincts (that Ludwig had encouraged) kicked in to dodge around behind the one closest to me, though I still took a hit to the arm, and then I stomped on its tail without really thinking about what I was doing. When it occurred to me that this kept it from moving, specifically, from turning around and hitting me again, I started chopping at it with my daggers. When it was dead I was covered in a clear gelatinous goo. Like the jelly frogs laid their eggs in. "Ick..."

"Are you alright?" Estelle rushed up to me and began healing the injury on my arm.

"Yeah, it's not too bad, thanks," I said while watching the healing light move from her hands to my arm. Dang that was a nifty method of first aid. I'm not especially used to fights or getting injured, so it was a relief to have the pink haired healer on duty. Even if I knew what her power meant for this world...

To distract myself from that train of thought I looked around to see how everyone else was doing after the fight. Yuri was standing in the center of a ring of dead monsters and didn't look like he'd even been scratched, Repede by his side with his own dagger clenched in his teeth. Karol had apparently been trying to hide behind a nearby rock and Rita was trying to drag him out again while complaining about him being useless.

_He'll get over it. No boy likes to be defended by girls and Yuri will be a good role model._

"You two okay over there?" Yuri asked us while picking up his sheath. It never made sense to me why he always threw it away during a fight. Well, I guess it's so it won't get in his way, but wouldn't it be a pain to find it every time?

"We're just fine." Estelle chirped. Then she turned back to me. "Letha, you did really well in that fight just now!" That surprised me, how could someone say _I_ fight well when Yuri Lowell is there to be compared to? I figured it was her way of trying to make me feel like part of the group.

"I'm not that good really, I just learned a bit about fighting from my uncle. We live alone, so he wanted to be sure I could take care of myself." I laughed. "He still wasn't happy about teaching me, 'cause he didn't think it was very feminine."

"Oh, but I'm sure he'd be proud of how you fought just now!" I smiled. _Maybe Ludwig would..._

"Was your uncle a knight?"

"Eh?" I looked over at Yuri in surprise, I hadn't realized he'd been listening. "Oh, no, he used to be in a guild, but he retired when I was still really young." What had he called the guild? "Umm, I think it was called The Protectors." I was again reminded strongly of the Tony Jaa movie about protecting elephants.

I was saved from randomly saying, "You killed my father! Where's my elephant?" (the Aikido Club's joke was that single line summed up half of the movie's dialogue) by the resident guild expert, Karol. "You're uncle was in The Protectors? That guild used to be really well known!"

"Really? Uncle told me that it was just a small guild."

"It was, and there were other bodyguard guilds with stronger members, but The Protectors were known for specializing in protecting common travelers for a low price. They made it safe for people who needed to to travel between cities but couldn't get protection from the Knights or didn't have enough money for any of the bigger guilds." He looked at me as if he couldn't believe I didn't know about this. But Ludwig would have told me if his guild was that big a deal, right?

"Is my uncle's guild famous then?"

"Uh, well not really. They disbanded fifteen years ago, so not many people know about them any more." I nodded.

"Well that explains it. I was only five then, and Uncle Ludwig isn't the type to brag much." Then a thought occurred to me. For Karol to know all about guilds hadn't surprised me, but The Protectors were from before his time. "Wait, then how do you know so much about them?"

"I heard about them from an older guild member." Oh, of course.

"If you're done, let's get going before more monsters come!" Rita snapped as she put words into action.

"Right behind you guys." Karol and I fell into step behind Rita and the others.

I ended up lagging behind the rest of the group, looking around and still hopefully glancing at my left hand now and then. When we found a blastia without a core I didn't really pay much attention as Rita and Estelle gave us a joint lecture about blastia and their cores, and how most had to be excavated from old ruins.

Being familiar with later events and plot twists in the game, I knew blastia had been buried on purpose to prevent the return of the Adephagos, but I thought it was still kind of careless to just leave them lying around. Shouldn't the civilization that had made them have locked them all up in a vault or something? They apparently didn't even leave behind any warning, only the Krytians on Myorzo had any idea what really happened.

A little later Rita gave Yuri the Sorcerer's Ring with instructions on how it worked with blastia and aer, and then Estelle mentioned the castle in Zaphias. That was going to tip Rita off, but I didn't pay it much mind since I knew she could be trusted.

"Are you sure? What if I'm just luring you deeper into the ruins so I can 'zap' you?" I had to hide a small laugh at the timing of that comment. It was my cue to pay attention again, as up ahead some of the stone sentinels had come to life and were standing guard in the route ahead.

"I'm starting to think I'd rather try my luck with the golem," Yuri said dryly as he accepted the point position and the job of using the Ring.

Ugh, Yuri's comments aside, fighting the golems wasn't fun. They were big, their fists were heavy, and it was hard to chip away at them with my little daggers. I mostly concentrated on supporting the others while trying not to get squashed. The bag Ludwig had given was me well stocked with gels that I shared freely.

When a few bats attacked as well, I targeted them instead. One bit me and tried to fly away from the battle. I just cursed and threw a rock at it. I'm not sure, but I think I heard Yuri laughing at me and my shoddy aim.

x x x

_**The Sorcerer's Ring**_

_Yuri: I wonder if people a long time ago used little things like this to move things around._

_Rita: Yes, items like this have been discovered in other ruins, as well._

_Karol: It sure is useful for something so small._

_Rita: Yeah, unlike some people I could name._

_Karol: Huh?_

_Letha: ...The Sorcerer's Ring is a little like a remote control, isn't it?_

_Yuri: What's that?_

_Letha: Huh? Oh, nothing! Just a little idea my aunt had, but wasn't able to make work._

_Estelle: It's impressive that you've been entrusted with a Sorcerer's Ring, Rita. I've heard they're only given to a very small number of people._

_Yuri: Hmmm. Guess someone trusts you._

_Rita: You're the only one who doesn't._

_**Did You Say "Castle"?**_

_Rita: Hey, didn't you say something about the castle not too long ago?_

_Estelle: Oh? Yes, well, you see..._

_Yuri: Yeah, I was in the castle a while back. I used to be a knight._

_Rita: You? A knight? Please, how gullible do you think I am?_

_Estelle: Believe it or not, it's true._

_Rita: ...Will wonders never cease?_

_Yuri: Is it really so hard for everyone to believe that?_

_Letha: I believe it just fine._

_Yuri: Really?_

_Letha: Well, yeah. The key word is that you "used" to be a knight. If you said you were still a knight now, I'd think you were pulling my leg!_

_Yuri: Thanks a lot. Come on, let's go._

_*Yuri, Estelle, and Letha leave.*_

_Rita: Hey, they changed the subject on me..._

_**Nothing to Worry About**_

_Estelle: Hmm... If that ceiling collapsed, we'd be buried alive._

_Karol: Wh-what are you saying stuff like that for, Estelle? What if that really happened?_

_Rita: Come on, don't be such a wimp. These ruins are made of stronger stuff than that._

_*A large crashing sound*_

_Karol: Ahhh! Estelle, now the ceiling's going to collapse because you were talking about it! ...Huh?_

_Yuri: Oh, sorry. I just stubbed my toe on a rock._

_Rita: ...You did that on purpose, didn't you?_

_Estelle: Yuri... You're mean..._

_Letha: I kinda thought it was funny...though it wouldn't surprise me if the ceiling really did fall. Made of strong stuff or not, time will have its way in the end._

_Karol: C-come on, let's hurry and finish up what we're doing so we can get out of these ruins!_

x x x

I didn't say much while we worked our way deeper into the ruins, mostly keeping my eyes peeled for more bats. They seemed to like the taste of my blood as much as mosquitoes back home did, and I found myself to be their target most of the time. Though with Yuri's little pranks almost making Karol wet his pants, I still managed to find some humor in the situation. Ah, too bad I missed the famous "Prepare to die, Eggbear!" line...

"Hey, Letha, was it?" I hadn't noticed the black haired man had fallen back to walk beside me.

"Uh, yeah? What is it Yuri?"

"I was just wondering why you don't use your bodhi blastia." My hand reached up to finger the hair clip in my braid again.

"Ah, well, I only got this recently so I'm not sure how to use it. I don't think Uncle Ludwig was originally planning on giving it to me so he never taught me about using them. I don't know much about Strike Artes either."

"That so? Well, you'll probably pick it up on your own while fighting." _Ah, Yuri, I don't think I'll "pick up" that sort of thing as easily as you do..._ "But if your uncle didn't want you fighting, why'd he let you leave on your own?" _...Shit._ He was looking at me closely to see how I took his question.

"Well, he didn't want me to live in the middle of a forest like he did forever. So now that he finally thinks I can take care of myself, I'm out of the nest to find my own place in the world. Though I plan to travel around as long as I can before settling down."

"'In the middle of the forest,' so you guys weren't in any of the cities? What did you do about monster attacks?" Yuri was pretty interested. I guess it's because the life I supposedly led sounded strange, giving up safety provided by barrier blastia. It was a good question, why did Ludwig and Sophia choose such a life? There must be more to it than just convenience for Sophia's research. Though it certainly had the appeal of freedom, which Yuri probably found attractive.

"Well, Uncle Ludwig set up a lot of traps around the house to keep monsters away, though none were close enough to put us in danger. He also made use of the terrain, not many big monsters could get to us, and what could were small fry he took care of with his swords."

"Huh. Not many people could live like that."

"Yeah, I don't think we could have either if he hadn't been a former guild member." I felt kind of uncomfortable talking to Yuri about this. He might have a pretty laid back attitude, but he still noticed things and fit the pieces together. I could only hope he'd be satisfied with quietly keeping an eye on me, and that any doubts he had about my cover story wouldn't make him turn me away.

"So, you're another sheltered girl who's never left home before. Hope you're better at looking after yourself than Estelle." His tone had become teasing, though he kept an innocent look on his face.

I grinned, "Well you'll have to be the judge of that, won't you? Let me know how sheltered you think I am once you've had some time to know me better."

"I'll do that."

What, you may ask? Was I flirting? No, of course I wasn't flirting with Yuri. ...Not intentionally. I just like guys that look good with long hair. He's cool but not really my type. ...Note to self: try not to send mixed signals. Though I'm not sure how much Yuri would actually pick up on, in the game and movie he was kind of slow about that sort of thing at times.

x x x

We finally reached the room where the giant golem was waiting for us, (I don't know if it has a name other than that), and I was _not_ looking forward to fighting that thing. Might as well throw me at a granite cliff with a pair of toothpicks.

When she saw it Rita split off from the group and ran towards it. "H-hey!" Yuri raised a hand as if to stop her, though she was already too far away.

Karol was craning his neck back to look up at the thing's head. "Jeez, what is this thing? So this is a blastia, too?"

"But what I want is the aque blastia," Yuri protested, "not this...this puppet."

"What are you doing? Don't just go poking at him like that!" Yuri turned away in disgust and Rita gave the golem her complete attention. "If I can just analyze him, I'll finally be able to complete my anima formu—huh? No! His blastia core is missing!" Oddly, at this point I remembered that Rita apparently names blastia. Had she named this golem too? If it were me, I'd probably be an idiot and name it "Gollum" or "My Precious."

What? Tolkien was an important part of my childhood!

Repede suddenly fell into an aggressive fighting stance, alerting us to the man in a white robe on the next floor trying to hide behind the pillars. "Rita, looks like one of your friends is here." Yuri said calmly.

"Hey! Who're you?"

At Rita's shout he gave up hiding and came back out. "M-me? I'm just a blastia researcher from Aspio!"

"...That sounded convincing," said a very unconvinced Yuri.

"And just who are all of you? This place is off-limits, you know!" Ah, such a classic bluff. Of course it didn't work on us.

"I think you just gave yourself away. I don't know who you are, but you're definitely not from Aspio if you don't recognize me," Rita declared with a hands on her hips and a haughty tilt to her head.

"...Guess she's got no problems with modesty." _I'm sure we're all thinking that, but it's because you say that out loud, Karol, that Rita always hits you._

Seeing he wasn't fooling us and Yuri already had his sword ready, the man rushed over to Gollum. "Gah! This job's just full of problems. If it's not the Knights, it's a bunch of kids!" _And I'm sure you would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog... _I didn't have time to mentally kick myself for that before he put the core back into the Gollum blastia. _Oh no! Gollum has his Precious back!_

The entire room began to shake as the golem stood up, causing Karol to shriek in fear. "Aaah, it's moving!"

"Rita!" Estelle's warning was too late and the golem backhanded the mage into a wall.

"Oww," I winced, "that's not playing nice, Gollum!" Rather than watch the exchange of Estelle healing Rita and Rita putting two and two together to get a pink haired, healing power using four, I busied myself trying to avoid getting hammered into the ground.

"Hey you guys! Stop playing around and help us!" Huh, so Karol hadn't hidden yet. Maybe it was because the golem was between him and the pillars. Rita tried to run past us to chase the escaping phony researcher, but Gollum got in her way. Instead Repede leaped over a swinging boulder of a hand and ran after him.

"I guess we've got no choice but to play with this wind-up toy for now." Yuri was ready to rumble.

"Let's get this over with and go after that jerk!" And Rita was just ticked off.

Deciding there wasn't much else I could do to be useful, I concentrated on chipping away at the stone construct's abnormally thin legs. I was hoping that they might break under its considerable weight and restrict its movement...maybe.

I did not like being there, it was all I could do to avoid being stomped on or getting any worse than glancing blows, but that thing was blasting some kind of light beam around that I was _positive _would suck even if it just clipped me. Staying as close as I could meant I was actually pretty safe from getting hit by one of those, or else the thing would destroy itself.

I heard Yuri's shout of "Azure Edge!" several times, and Karol's "Dragon Upper!" Fire balls were also regularly exploding somewhere above my head and...there was Estelle hitting the thing on the knee with a hammer that made rubbery noises. Alright, I guess a hammer was about as good as my daggers in this case.

A Fire Ball burst against the golem's waist, just barely missing my head. "Shit, aim Rita, AIM!" I shouted, and the distraction kept me from dodging fast enough. "OOF!" The breath was knocked out of my chest, but I clung desperately to the arm that had just bashed into me. Fortunately I'd been hit by a swing of the arm rather than a punch, so it couldn't just smoosh me into the ground. Instead, Gollum began waving me around trying to dislodge me.

"Oh eff, this is worse than riding that mechanical rodeo bull!" I gasped. Unlike with the bull, however, I couldn't just let go when I'd had enough and wanted off. _Urgh, now is probably a time when a Strike Arte would be useful!_ Desperate to try something, I stabbed one of my daggers into the golem and tried to imagine forcing my energy through it, kind of like I'd heard of in various yoga, tai chi, and even my Aikido lessons.

I was more surprised than anything when the metal flashed green and a large chunk of stone fell away. Unfortunately, in my surprise my grip loosened and I flew across the room. I didn't hit a pillar like Rita had, but I must have skid five feet across the floor. I landed badly too, so I couldn't recover with a backwards roll and didn't think of trying a hard fall until it was too late.

"Letha! Are you hurt?" Not sure who that was, maybe Estelle. Yeah, I'd put my money on Estelle... I just raised a hand and waved it a bit.

"I'm not dead~! But I'm gonna wish I was tomorrow..."

There was a particularly large blast of heat past my vision, though I could see how everything was very distinctly outlined by fire-colored light, so I figured Rita got the finishing blow in. This was confirmed by the sound of something heavy falling to the ground and her saying, "All that's left is to cut off its power supply...I'm sorry..." Then there was a distinct "powering down" noise.

_Ah, don't feel bad for Gollum, Rita! At least he didn't fall into a fiery pit of doom!_ I was kind of dazed...

"Rita, hurry!" _Oh yeah, have to chase the thief_.

"All right, all right!" _I should get up._ Just as I pushed myself into a sitting position, I felt a tremor.

"Uh, that was bad wasn't it?" I muttered. Now I could see that the section of floor I was sitting on was heavily damaged, and cracks were spreading across it. I looked up just in time to meet Estelle's horrified blue-green eyes before there was a loud crack and I was dropped into darkness.

x x x

Hmm? Hmm? I bet none of you expected that! Oh, what happens next?

Bodhi blastia and Strike Artes, how exactly do they work? Can someone tell me?

Ugh, I need to think of attack names for Letha... Neither she nor I are the type to call out the name of an attack while preforming said attack, but I think I still have to at least name them...

As for the skits: I settled on leaving them in a skit-like format because otherwise it would take forever to get anywhere. I didn't want to cut them out entirely because they contain valuable humor and develop the characters. So I'm including any skit that I think Letha would add her own two cents to, overhear, or that I made up because I thought it seemed like it could happen. Yeah, I'm enjoying myself with these...


	6. Chapter 6: One Step Forward

AN: Warning! A minor Battlestar Galactica spoiler! (Though I don't actually watch the show...)

I want to get this chapter up and out of the way, because it kinda embarrasses me...

x x x

Chapter 6: One Step Forward But the Path Got Longer

x x x

I was cold, and that was probably a good thing because it numbed the pain a bit. This was one of those times when I woke up with a clear head, and I tried very hard not to move until I could figure out how bad things were.

Well, I didn't die, so I guess I didn't fall that far and no especially large rocks had landed on me. It was also faintly lit in here, so maybe the hole I'd made wasn't too far away. But when I carefully tilted my neck back to look up, I couldn't see any light from above marking where I fell. _That's strange, then where is that light from? Eh? Why does my hand feel warm... I hope it's not blood."_

I looked at my hand, and stared blankly for a second until what I was seeing registered. Nevi's tattoo was glowing its sunset red and orange combination! Oh hallelujah!

Excitement gave me new energy, and I slowly curled up and then pushed myself off the floor. _No sudden screamingly painful pains, so I guess nothing broke._ I stood and limped forward, waving my left hand around in front of me to help see where I was going. I couldn't really tell if the light changed depending on the direction, though, but at least it wasn't going out. I think I would have broke down and cried if it had.

_Am I getting warmer? Warmer?_ I was playing the Hot-Cold game this had reminded me of before, though apparently there were only the options "cold," "warm," and "so hot you've stuck your hand into the burner." But the room I'd fallen into seemed to be pretty empty, so it wouldn't be like a needle in a hay stack, right?

And _ho snap,_ the tattoo turned blue! The universe wasn't entirely out to get me! (Just wait till the other shoe falls...) I stopped in my tracks and began sweeping my arms around, feeling for whatever it was. But it seemed like I was standing in empty space...except for the floor.

I dropped to my knees, hissing in pain, and started feeling for anything lying on the ground. There still wasn't anything...wait! My right hand brushed against something and I heard the clinking sound of something rolling away. My left hand turned orange-red again, and I scrambled to the right until it went back to blue and white. I carefully skimmed my left hand around and...found it!

The light from my hand went out and plunged me into complete darkness. "Well isn't this just swell?" I'd forgotten that finding the heirloom or whatever would take away my only light source. But Nevi should be on his way, and for once I would be really glad to see him. Though I wouldn't actually see...argh, technicalities!

There was shower of sparks that seemed to fall from somewhere up above, and then I heard, "Argh! What in the name of the Sidhe is this all about? Couldn't you have had the decency to have made some light before you summoned me?"

"_Terribly _sorry, Nevi dearest, but I find myself rather low on options right now," I rasped, and then had a short fit of coughing. Dammit, it wasn't like I had any control over where I found his stupid heirloom.

"Hnph." _He uses that sound for everything, doesn't he?_ A glow slowly built in the air around us, though with no obvious source. I guess Nevi decided to light up the air since there was nothing else handy. "Well, where is it?" Holding out my hand, I uncurled my fist and took a good look at what I was holding.

"Huh? Just what is this?" It looked like a small silver rod carved with vine-like designs. At one end was a ruby cut in a polygonal shape, and the other had a smooth, marble-like sapphire. The whole thing was just a little shorter than the length of my palm. Nevi snatched it from me and examined it carefully.

"I was worried about this, the heirloom has been broken into pieces. The individual piece is still usable, so it can be fixed, but we'll need to find the rest."

"So, the other pieces should be here right? Just look around the room for them."

"No, there are none left here, or else my mark would still be indicating their presence." Damn, my tattoo was still just plain pseudo black. "However there may still be pieces left in this world. Continue to search for them." And _poof!_ he was gone again.

"Dammit Nevi! You could have at least left the light behind!" Yeah, the fairy glow went away with the fairy man. I wasn't too surprised by any of that, actually. Of course it had been too easy, and of course Nevi wouldn't make things any easier.

Well, now I had to deal with a problem I'd hoped I wouldn't have to worry about. Finding my way out of the Shaikos Ruins. I couldn't really expect Yuri and the others to come find me. They were nice people, and all about doing the right thing, but they had their own business to take care of. That was assuming there even was another way to get out besides that hole in the ceiling I couldn't see.

Hmm, wait, I had something that might help. I dug into my bag until I found the hidden pocket I'd sewn into the lining. Inside were all the things I'd brought from Earth, tucked away where they wouldn't draw unwanted attention. I identified my cell phone by touch, pulled it out, and flipped it open. The artificial light wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. I selected the "lantern" option and stood up again.

"Next item on our agenda: find a door."

Wandering around dark ruins infested with monsters isn't nearly as much fun when you're alone. It might have been bearable if I wasn't afraid of my phone's power dying, and hadn't dropped my daggers somewhere. I felt bad about losing the daggers Ludwig had given me, and so soon after I'd left!

After stumbling around I managed to find a doorway half hidden by fallen rocks. Beyond was a corridor that went both left and right. I stood looking from side to side, as if expecting a car would come barreling through, before eventually settling on going left. I almost began praying not to run into any monsters, but grumbled to myself, "With my luck right now, that would just guarantee monsters would show up."

The path didn't branch off, and all the doors I came across were either locked or blocked by rubble (I assumed) on the other side. Finally the long hallway culminated in two very large, ornate doors. I pushed against one with my shoulder, putting all my weight behind it without using my throbbing arms. It was beginning to hurt even moving them...

The door slowly swung open, and I nearly fell inside. When I looked inside I groaned. It was a dead end, with no other doors or stairway out. Though my second desperate check raised my spirits a little. An exit didn't magically appear, but now it registered in my tired brain that this was an armory.

"Yays! Let's find something sharp and pointy to scare off mean people with!" ...I was very tired.

I looked over the rows of armor, racks of weapons, and shields hung on the walls. Armor wouldn't do for me, in my best condition I'd do better with something sturdy that emphasized movement. Hurt like I was, anything I found here would just be extra weight I couldn't handle. Shields weren't any better for the same reasons. Most of the weapons were also too much for me, and I didn't have the skill for them anyway.

Weren't there any simple daggers or maybe a short sword I could manage with?

I poked around for awhile, looking into the corners with my phone's small sphere of light, before I found something appropriate. Two daggers, not quite matching but similar, made of metal I didn't recognize. They didn't seem to be iron or steel, but I doubted they were real silver or they'd be tarnished and pretty worthless in a fight. Their handles were black and felt comfortable in my hands. Something about them reminded me of the foils I used in my high school fencing club. I tested the blades against one of the weapon racks, and they bit deep into the wood. So I stuck them into my empty sheaths and turned to leave.

I saw another small weapon rack tucked behind the door I'd opened, so I hadn't noticed it when I came in. I stepped in closer and held up my phone to try and see better. I was pretty surprised to find a Chinese dao, the same kind of weapon as one of the swords Ludwig favored using.

I never brushed up much on the history of the weapon, but I knew daos are often translated into English as sabers, broadswords, or large kitchen knives (yeah, the last one apparently has something to do with its origins). This one had a handle wrapped in white leather cord, a blade that was a shiny blue-gray color, and a disk shaped guard of the same metal.

I thought I might be able to manage it. Plus, it might be a good idea to carry something a bit more substantial than daggers in case I run into something that made the smaller blades redundant. Like Gollum and his smaller friends. _Hell, I hope I don't find anymore of those down here._

So I shifted my belts around to give me room for the dao on my left hip, next to one of my daggers, and left the armory to retrace my steps with the hope that the other way led outside.

x x x

"_It can not be seen,_

_can not be felt,_

_can not be heard,_

_can not be smelt~_

"_It lies behind stars,_

_and under hills,_

_and empty holes_

_it fills~_

"_It comes first_

_and follows after,_

_ends life,_

_kills laughter~_

"_The answer is Dark~_

_The Dark~_

_The Dark~"_

Yeah, I was singing to myself again. "Riddles in the Dark," from an animated version of _The Hobbit_ I'd seen as a child. My phone had run out of power a while ago, and now I was groping blindly in the dark. Maybe part of me was hoping that Gollum (the real one, not the golem I'd affectionately named) would come along and could be tricked into showing me out.

Though I've had nightmares of Gollum trying to kill me, so I'd probably be better off running the other way.

Not only did I have no light, but I was afraid I might have hurt my spine or something in the earlier fight with the golem or that fall afterwards. Moving my arms hurt like crazy and it was all I could do to move my legs to keep walking forward.

I cried out in relief when I finally found a flight of stairs. They were even more agony to climb, I expected as much from experience with muscles sore from Aikido practice, so I took my time and rested frequently. I tried switching over to a more cheerful song to keep my spirits up during those breaks.

"_Far o'er the misty mountains cold_

_to dungeons deep and caverns old_

_we must away ere break of day_

_to seek the pale enchanted gold._

"_Far o'er the misty mountains cold_

_to dungeons deep and caverns old_

_we must away ere break of day_

_to find our long forgotten gold._

"_Far o'er the misty mountains grim_

_to dungeons deep and caverns dim_

_we must away ere break of day_

_to win our harps and gold from him._

"_Under the mountain dark and tall_

_the king has come into his hall_

_his foe is dead, the wyrm of dread_

_and ever so his foes shall fall!"_

Okay, not exactly cheerful, but it was certainly triumphant. And another song from _The Hobbit;_ I was deeply affected by both the book and movie when I was young. It echoed eerily, and appropriately, up the steps and down the ruined corridors.

For the hell of it, I started singing from the beginning again. Even before "gold" was done bouncing ahead of me I heard a frightened cry.

"Aaah! What was that!"

"Karol?" I straightened and tried to shout as loud as I could. "HEY KAROL, IS THAT YOU?" _Oh, damn, that hurts my ears_. I winced as my loudest shout rang out repeatedly. Not used to raising my voice like that at all...

"Letha? You're okay!" _That's debatable, Karol, but we'll leave that for another time._ I didn't bother answering, my ears were still ringing from last time.

"Stay put, okay? We'll find you!" At Yuri's words I felt the last of my strength drain out of my legs and slid back down to sit on the steps. "Keep talking so we know where you are!"

I sighed, and then shouted once more. "You guys better be bringing me something to drink, I'll need it after this! And DON'T YOU EVER TELL ANYONE WHAT I'M GOING TO DO NEXT!" I waited until the last of those echoes faded, then began to sing again.

I wanted a song that would create a strong echo with little effort, could be repeated without tripping me up, and wouldn't raise any awkward questions later. At the time, the first thing I thought of was "Gaeta's Lament."

"_Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man_

_with my three wishes clutched in her hand._

"_The first that she be spared the pain_

_that comes from a dark and laughing rain._

"_When she finds love may it always stay true,_

_this I beg for the second wish I made too._

"_But wish no more, my life you can take_

_to have her please, just one day wake_

_to have her please, just one day wake_

_to have her please, just one day wake."_

I leaned against the stone wall and closed my eyes, just concentrating on the words. My mind insisted on pulling up the Youtube video I'd seen of the clip this song went to, where Gaeta was singing to distract himself from the pain of an amputation. It was a powerful scene in my mind, even if I didn't know anything about the series, and I couldn't help drawing a parallel to my own situation.

Between my own pain and the focus I put into the song I apparently cut out everything around me. When Yuri's hand tapped my shoulder I was startled into a coughing fit.

"Woah, sorry! You okay?" I nodded, not wanting to hear what my voice would sound like if I spoke now. Determined to leave as soon as possible, I tried to stand up and would have collapsed if not for the wall at my back. Yuri grabbed my arms and forced me to sit down again. "Easy now, wait for Estelle to heal you first."

I nodded again, starting to feel like a marionette puppet with all strings but the one on its head cut, and waited for the pink haired girl to work her magic. _In the future, I should avoid getting so seriously hurt. One, because it sucks ass. Two, so Estelle doesn't need to use her power on me too much. I'd hate to be the straw that broke the camel's back... Three, because it _really_ sucks and makes me look bad._ Hey, I have my pride.

Estelle's Healing Artes felt warm, and the pain slowly became a dull ache. I could almost imagine I felt something in my spine straighten just a tad, and the pain receded from my arms and legs. When I could bear it again I put my hand on hers. "Stop, that's enough. It won't do any good if you wear yourself out in my place," though, Goddammit, I wanted to shut my mouth and let her finish. She tried to protest but I overrode her by standing up. "Let's just get out of here for now. If you really feel you need to, you can heal me some more outside."

I leaned on Karol's shoulder a bit, he's a good height to do that inconspicuously so Estelle wouldn't argue the point, and I guess he got the hint. "Come on, the exit's not that far from here!"

x x x

_**Still a Suspect?**_

_Letha: It's a relief you're all still here. I was kind of afraid you'd leave without me._

_Yuri: Estelle wouldn't leave without us at least trying to find you._

_Letha: She must have felt terrible, seeing me fall and not being able to do anything. Oh! Hey, what happened to that thief?_

_Yuri: Between the monsters and Repede, he didn't get far. But he wasn't the one with the aque blastia..._

_Letha: Too bad. I hope that doesn't mean I'm on your suspect list again._

_Yuri: I don't know if you're a blastia thief, but you certainly stole an hour of our time like you said you would._

_Letha: ...Sorry._

_**I Don't Sing**_

_Estelle: It's a good thing we heard you singing, Letha, or we might never have found you._

_Yuri: Though your voice coming out of nowhere like that gave Captain Karol a real scare._

_Karol: I wasn't scared!_

_Letha: Let's get one thing clear. You. Didn't. Hear. Me. Sing._

_Estelle: ...?_

_Karol: Wait, if it wasn't you, then who was singing?_

_Yuri: Huh, well there's no one here but us. It must've been a ghost._

_Karol: A gh-ghost!_

_Rita: C-cut that out! There aren't any ghosts here!_

_Letha: I wonder if monsters sing..._

_**Looking For Letha**_

_Letha: Hey, Rita, is something wrong? You've been glaring at me for awhile now._

_Rita: We could have been out of here by now if we didn't have to take a detour to look for you._

_Letha: Err, sorry...but it's not like I fell through the floor on purpose._

_Estelle: Rita was just worried about you. She was the one who figured out how to find the tunnel you were in._

_Letha: Really? Thanks, Rita!_

_Rita: Just don't do something stupid again!_

_*Rita leaves*_

_Letha: I'm not sure if that was her way of telling me to be careful, or to keep out of her way..._

x x x

"Nngh, I'm so hungry..."

"Aspio is just a little farther, just wait a while and you can rest." Estelle had patched me up more once we got out of the ruins, but nothing would be better than getting a good night's sleep. On a bookshelf, oh joy...

"Ugh, can't I even have something to eat while we walk?"

"Don't you have any food of your own?"

"I had some bread in my bag, but it was crushed into pieces when I fell. And then I had to use those pieces to distract some monsters when I took a wrong turn."

Rita growled in exasperation before thrusting a small loaf of bread into my hands, "Here! Just shut up already!"

"I will love and respect you forever, Rita!" I chimed happily while tearing a piece off and munching on it.

"All that for some bread?"

"Karol, my boy, it's simple. I love bread. I have no idea why, but a meal with bread makes my life complete."

"You're easy to please." _Ha! If only my family heard you say that, Yuri!_ Not wanting to go into depth about my eating habits, I followed Rita's earlier order and stopped talking in favor of eating.

I was brushing the crumbs from my hands and jacket sleeves (oh, the country bumpkin I must have seemed like to Princess Estelle!) as we entered the caves Aspio was located in. It was pretty late, we'd been in the ruins for a few hours, and Aspio hadn't exactly been a skip in the park away.

"...So Flynn wasn't in there either." Return of the Wilting Flower Estelle! I felt kind of bad for her. It must have been frustrating to always be a step behind someone you're worried for.

"So who is this knight, exactly?" Rita asked.

"He's Yuri's friend," Estelle explained simply, which I didn't think really explained much at all.

"Hmmm, 'your' friend? That must be a pain."

"Huh?" Yuri glanced back over his shoulder at Rita. _You just got burned, Yuri._

"Never mind. So what brings him to this town?"

"He was looking for a mage to repair Halure's barrier blastia..." _That was a much better explanation, Lady Estellise! Good job! ...I must be tired._

"Ohh...that rookie... He came to see me, too." I took a moment to wonder what the game's story might have been like if Rita hadn't turned Flynn down...

"Flynn did? Was he all right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?" Karol exclaimed in disbelief. Or exasperation. My mind was getting too sluggish to categorize things anymore.

"Since he's a knight, I'm sure he got some mage or another to help. Maybe he's already back in Halure?" _Logical, logical._

"...Oh, no..." Estelle murmured. I thought I'd speak my piece here.

"I said before that I saw some people leaving the Shaikos Ruins before you guys got there, right?" Estelle nodded.

"Yes, you did."

"And that thief said the knights had been getting in his way. So that means I must have seen this Flynn you're talking about. He looked just fine to me."

"Well that's something," Karol joined my attempt to cheer Estelle up. "I bet we'll catch him in Halure this time."

"Well? Do you trust me yet?" Rita directed this at Yuri's back. _Why does he turn away during conversations with people? You'll get a knife in the back one day, Yuri! Oh..._

Estelle was quick to put in her good word, "I don't think Rita's the sort of person to steal."

Yuri turned to look at them both, "Vouch for her character all you like, but that doesn't prove her innocence."

"But...!"

"Don't bother trying to make him believe me. But, I really didn't do it, y'know."

"Hmph. Well, I guess research seems to fit you better than robbery." Ah, the closest Yuri comes to admitting he was wrong. On that note he turned away again and walked into the city.

"Yuri isn't very good at expressing his feelings." Estelle was quick to assure the mage.

"...What a weirdo. I'm going to go let the city guards know about what happened. Go and wait for me in my lab."

I sighed and stared at the ceiling while Rita gave the swordsman a passport for getting through the gate. "A city with a ceiling. How sad, to live without the Sun, moon, and stars." I'd go crazy here, even with the impressive library to play in.

I wasn't sure Rita had meant to include me, but no one had objected when I followed them to the young mage's house. I picked a corner for myself where I sat down and closed my eyes. I didn't expect to get any sleep, but any rest would do me wonders. The others were talking about what to do next, I paid only as much attention as I needed to confirm they were returning to Halure before going to Nor Harbor.

"Letha, what are you doing next?" _Why are you talkin' to me when I just wanna sleeeep?_

"You said before that you were traveling to see the world, right?" _Hmm, wait, this is probably the best time to see if they'll let me stay with them._ I fought to open my eyes and look over at Yuri. "Uh, yeah, I think I said that. I don't really have a destination in mind, I just figured I'd try to see if there were any other travelers leaving Aspio and go where ever they were going next. Safety in numbers, you know?" _Hopefully an innocent leading statement without being too obvious?_

"Do you mind coming to Halure with us?" _WHEEEE! ...Half of that is because I'm looking forward to seeing the tree..._

"Yeah, Halure sounds good. Thanks."

x x x

If I don't stop this chapter here, I don't know where I'll stop.

The injured spine? I don't know a lot about anatomy or medical things, so neither does Letha. She can't diagnose what's wrong with herself, and she just assumes something _might_ have happened to her spine because 1) people assume what they're afraid of to be true and 2) if maybe just a nerve was pinched or something, that might explain the loss of feeling and strength in her limbs.

*cough cough* Well, it seems this is another chapter with a bunch of song references... It can't be helped, my mind supplies appropriate music in these scenarios, and if I was alone I can definitely say I'd be singing to myself. As for her singing to get the others to find her, well, I don't like the idea of shouting about whatever until I kill my throat.

"Riddles in the Dark" or as I call it, "Gollum's Riddle" - from Rankin & Bass's animated version of _The Hobbit_

"Misty Mountains" or whatever it's called. - Also from Rankin & Bass, delivered in pieces over the whole movie.

"Gaeta's Lament" - From Battlestar Galactica, I think it belongs to Bear McCreary...


	7. Chapter 7: My Web of Lies

I'll regret updating so soon once I've run out of prewritten chapters to give me a buffer, but right now there's a pestering sugar happy muse in my brain that won't leave me alone.

x x x

Chapter 7: My Web of Lies

x x x

At that moment Rita got back from whatever she was doing. Oh right, telling the guards about the blastia thief in the ruins. Wouldn't he have woken up and left by now? Unless she tied him up...

"I know I asked you to wait for me, but you sure made yourselves at home, didn't you?"

The swordsman stood up from where he'd been lounging on the floor. "Sorry for suspecting you."

"What a heartfelt apology. I'll take it though. It worked out pretty well for me, too." She walked over to her formula covered blackboard and looked thoughtfully from it to Estelle, who just looked back at her questioningly.

"Well, thanks for the hospitality."

The mage turned back to the black haired man, "What? Going so soon?"

He put his hands on his hips. "We don't want to overstay our welcome. Plus, we're in a bit of a hurry." I groaned and forced myself to stand up. He glanced at me. "Well, maybe we'll borrow one of those shelves in the library for a few hours of sleep first." I gave the man a grateful look, no longer caring if the bed I wanted so badly was going to be a large piece of wood.

Estelle bowed at the waist, her pink hair bobbing. "I'm so happy to have met you, Rita. I'm afraid we have to go now. I'll thank you properly later."

"Okay..." _Hmm Rita sounds uncertain. I bet she's not used to that._

x x x_  
_

_**The Frail Girlfriend**_

_Estelle: So tell me about this frail girlfriend of yours, Karol._

_Karol: Wha?_

_Estelle: The reason you want to go to Nor Harbor is so you can see her, isn't it?_

_Karol: H-how do you know about her?_

_Estelle: I knew it!_

_Karol: N-no! I mean, she's not even in Nor Harbor..._

_Estelle: Oh, it's not Nor Harbor?_

_Karol: I d-don't know what you're talking about!_

_Yuri: You might as well come clean, Karol. It's obvious Estelle's not going to give up._

_Karol: You've got it all wrong!_

_*Karol runs off*_

_Estelle: Karol...!_

_*Estelle follows*_

x x x

I wasn't the only one who was tired. Karol and Estelle fell asleep almost immediately despite the uncomfortable beds, though Yuri kept turning over in his bed...shelf...for awhile. I can't say I've slept in much worse, but I could deal with it since I've slept on the floor a number of times back home or during slumber parties.

It would have been fine, but I was hit by one of my attacks in the night. They weren't as bad as before, I didn't pass out or anything, but I had to fight to keep breathing normally so as not to wake anyone up. It eventually passed, and I fell into dreamless sleep.

x x x

Yuri woke us all up early the next morning. "Make sure you have everything you're going to need, then meet by the gate in half an hour."

I definitely needed to restock on apple gels, I'd used up the last ones Ludwig gave me while fighting Gollum. Oh, that's right, there was also that promise to buy "more suitable clothes for a young lady." Though I didn't think I'd have time to pick any out, and probably wouldn't have a chance for a while still...

While carefully packing my bag with the gels and food I'd bought (must not annoy teammates with my hungry stomach again) I heard someone walk up behind me. Turning, I saw Yuri standing there with his free hand on his hip. "There's something you haven't told us, isn't there. About why you left home." It was a statement, not a question, but it demanded answers.

"I don't know what gave you that idea. I'm just traveling." Crap, I couldn't look him in the eye. None of that was _really _a lie, but it felt close enough to one that I was uncomfortable. Which the swordsman noticed, of course.

"Then what are you really traveling for?" I stayed quiet. A spark of an idea had formed in my mind. If I gave an answer too easily, then Yuri probably wouldn't believe it was the whole story. Which it probably wouldn't be. But if I resisted, then gave him an edited version that left out fairies, Earth, and video games, maybe he'd think that was the whole thing and leave me alone.

"I'm...really just traveling. See the world and all that."

"Estelle told me." I looked at him in confusion. "When you fell, she said she it looked like your started to glow." _Shit, I'm gonna have to buy gloves or something._ "She thinks she imagined it, but there's also the fact that you were waiting for us in the Shaikos Ruins." So my story about Aunt Sophia didn't fool him.

I squirmed. Why was Yuri so fixated on finding out my motives? _Wait, what if he thinks I'm with the assassins that are after him and Estelle? Or someone the Empire sent to bring back their princess? Ohh, I didn't think of that. I have to cobble something together with the truth and the story I've already told them._

"I told you guys that my aunt was a researcher, right? She liked to travel and study ruins." He nodded. "Well, when I was little she found a strange object in one of those ruins. She brought it home to study, but since I was a little toddler at the time I started to play with it. I don't really remember this, but apparently while I was holding it there was a flash of light and suddenly I had this mark on my hand." I held up my left hand to show him the tattoo. "It didn't hurt me or anything, sometimes it just begins to shine. Don't know why." His eyes looked a little doubtful, but he didn't say anything.

"Anyway, she lost the object and died before I was five. I don't really remember what it looked like too well, but I'm hoping to find it, or the place where she got it. Unfortunately, Uncle Ludwig doesn't remember where that was either. So I'm going to travel around to find it myself." I nodded. _Okay, I think that works. Damn, I told him more than I wanted to, but I don't think he'd settle for any less right now. I'm not sure he'll buy it, but if he already knew about the light..._

"That's a pretty wild story." _The truth is wilder..._

"Reality is sometimes stranger than fiction," I told him. "Do you not want me with you guys anymore?" He might still decide to ditch me, either while we were still in Aspio or in Halure.

"Nah, it's alright. Just let us know if it starts doing something besides shining at you." I blinked. Wow, Yuri really was pretty easy going about this sort of thing. He let's Judith and Raven join even though he knows they're fishy, and even with my own ridiculous story he barely bats an eye.

"Um, you won't tell the others, right? I'd rather not make a big deal about this." I traced the curving lines on my hand nervously.

"Sure, whatever." He waved a hand without looking at me as he walked away. I was in the clear for the time being, but he was bound to come back with more questions later.

x x x

I was surprised to be one of the first waiting at the gate, though Karol was already there. I looked around for the others, and saw Yuri and Estelle coming together. Maybe they'd been talking about something? If I remembered right, the princess needed frequent pep talks throughout the journey. Repede appeared out of nowhere, I'd guess he'd been following Yuri all along, but I hadn't seen him until just then.

The swordsman quickly took charge, "If everyone's ready, let's head out." He turned and looked behind him. "If you're seeing us off, we'll say goodbye here." Oh there was Rita rushing towards us. She must have been thinking all night about what to do, and hurried out to catch us once she'd reached her decision.

"I'm going with you." Man, if only it could have been that easy for me to join the group. As it was, I still wasn't sure if I could call myself an official member. Not with Yuri questioning me like that before.

"Y-you're doing what?" stuttered the young guilds man.

"Oh, so this is why you told us not to leave without saying goodbye, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Is that it? Just 'yeah'?" You know, Karol had a point. In the manga this scene has a much more flustered Rita. Because she's socially challenged and all. But she's a very confident person, so maybe she was able to stay calm on the outside.

"Can you just leave like that? You're an important mage here, right?" I think Yuri was hoping she'd change her mind. Even he had to feel strange traveling with someone he falsely accused, right? _Please, this is Yuri, that would probably never even occur to him_.

"...Hmm..." I pretended I could see a light bulb flash over the genius' head. "I want to see Halure's barrier blastia for myself. It's no good to the people there if it's broken, right?"

I had to hide a smile as Karol stole her hot air. "Actually, the three of us fixed it together." Yeah, I wasn't there for that, no kudos for me.

"Huh? What do you mean you 'fixed' it? You're just amateurs."

"You know, we revived it. It was great! Estel-" I had to suppress the sudden urge to cover his mouth with my hand. Yuri was on the ball, guarding the princess' secret, and I didn't need to give him reason to suspect me more.

"Let's just say it was beginner's luck." He dismissed the achievement simply.

"Now I'm really worried. I'll have to go see if it's been done properly or not." Yup, her excuse still applied.

"Suit yourself," Yuri shrugged and Estelle ran up to Rita like an excited puppy.

"W-what?" Rita's not a dog person.

"I've never had a real friend my own age before!"

"I-I'm not so sure we're-"

"This is going to be so much fun!"

"Y-yeah..."

x x x

_**Rita and Repede**_

_Repede: ..._

_Rita: What are you looking at?_

_Repede: *Woof!*_

_Rita: Hey dog, you keep away!_

_Karol: Huh? Rita, are you afraid of dogs?_

_Rita: Not at all! Mind your own business! Oh no..._

_*Estelle enters*_

_Estelle: Hey Rita, I wanted to ask you about this- Oh, Repede!_

_*Repede leaves. Estelle follows.*_

_Karol: Repede sure knows who he likes and who he doesn't._

_**Traveling with This Bunch?**_

_Yuri: When we left the capital, it was just me, Repede and Estelle._

_Estelle: Now Karol, Letha and Rita have joined us. I'm so happy to have more people to travel with!_

_Karol: I'm not so sure about some people in our party, though._

_Rita: I'm not so sure about you, you little runt._

_Yuri: Hey now, go easy on the young Captain._

_Estelle: Rita, we all have to work to get along, okay?_

_Rita: Oh, yeah... Right._

_**Rita's Age**_

_Estelle: Have you been doing research in Aspio for a long time, Rita?_

_Rita: Yeah, I guess about five years._

_Estelle: Five years, wow... Rita, how old are you anyway?_

_Rita: ...I'm fifteen._

_Estelle: W-wow... Y-you're so grown up. I can't believe you were researching blastia at ten..._

_Rita: It's not a big deal. How old are you, Estellise?_

_Estelle: Oh, umm, I just turned eighteen this year._

_Rita: Time to grow up._

_Estelle: R-right... I'll do my best._

_**Letha's Age**_

_Estelle: I was wondering..._

_Letha: About what?_

_Estelle: Karol said your uncle's guild disbanded fifteen years ago._

_Letha: Yeah..._

_Estelle: And you said you were five then. So that means you're twenty now?_

_Letha: Estellise, I thought you would know better than to ask a lady's age!_

_Estelle: Oh! I-I'm so sorry! I didn't mean-_

_Letha: I'm just kidding Estelle! Yeah, I'm twenty._

_Rita: I would have figured you were younger._

_Estelle: Really? I thought she was older._

_Letha: I have an ageless spirit._

_Estelle & Rita: ..._

x x x

It took most of the morning to reach Halure, and on the way we were attacked by more of those wasps I'd seen before and various bird-like monsters. My new-old daggers from the ruins proved to work very well, they were nicely balanced in my hands and cut cleanly. When I managed to hit something that is, it's hard when all your targets are flapping and buzzing around.

Though it was probably for the best, I was starting to get a little queasy from slicing things open. I don't like to kill needlessly, and while killing monsters to defend myself and others was justifiable, I didn't particularly enjoy it. Reaching Halure's barrier made me breath a sigh of relief.

"H-hey! The tree's already blooming?"

"Heh heh, I told you! We brought the tree back to life." Rita smacked Karol in the head before running off towards the tree.

"Oh, you've returned! Just as the knight said." An old man I assumed was the mayor shuffled over to us. Did he choose to live in that house just so he could monitor who came to Halure? Disturbing thought... Everyone else gathered in close to him, but I hung back a bit. _Ugh, I feel stiff..._

"Umm...do you mean Flynn?" Estelle sounded so hopeful. I stretched my arms out high above my head.

The mayor folded his hands in front of him, mirroring the gesture Estelle often made. "Unfortunately, you just missed him."

"No way! Not again..." You lost your own little bet, little Captain.

"He was quite surprised that the barrier had been fixed." I couldn't see Yuri's face, but I imagined that the swordsman might have smirked at successfully one up-ing his childhood friend and rival.

"Umm...would you happen to know which way he went?" I twisted around to work out some kinks in my spine.

"No...I'm sorry, I don't know... However, he did entrust me with a letter." _Dammit, my back still feels awful._

The others took the letter and opened it. I smiled when I heard Karol exclaim, "Wha? A-a wanted poster? Wh-why?"

"I guess I made a little too much mischief..."

"W-what kind of mischief gets you into this?"

I grinned and couldn't resist saying, "And here I thought I was just joking when I said you were all thieves taking me prisoner." Yuri glanced at me, and raised an eyebrow. I was bent over backwards trying to give my back and spine a good stretch (too bad I'm not quite flexible enough for the Table position), and I gave him a bright, upside-down smile.

"I-it's my fault..." the princess murmured.

Yuri returned his attention to the poster, "Oh come on... Only five thousand Gald?"

"That's way too high for just breaking out of jail! You must have done something else!" Yuri threw rocks at people...better than I can.

"S-so, what does the letter say?" Yuri passed the letter to Estelle, I finished stretching and took a look at the wanted poster. _Damn, that's a bad drawing...did the Tweedles draw it?_ "'Catch up with me. I'll be waiting in Nor Harbor.'"

"'Catch up with me,' huh? Easy for him to say." I think this letter made Yuri forget all those good feelings he'd had for beating Flynn to something.

"He also writes that we should watch out for assassins." Was it my imagination, or did Yuri glance at me briefly when Estelle said that?

"Wow, he even knows we're being hunted!"

"Sounds like this guy knows what he's doing," Karol said with a tone of admiration. _Well, Zagi's original target _was _Flynn so-wait, I don't think Flynn knew about Zagi. So how did he know the assassins were targeting Yuri? Maybe he just figured out Yuri and the princess would probably run into the assassins following him._

_...Except how did he know he was a target, and why did the assassins switch to targeting Yuri? Was it because Estelle was with him?_ Too complicated... Oh, I had zoned out and lost the track of the conversation. I think Yuri had just asked Estelle what she planned to do. The sheltered princess was having one of her indecisive moments.

They weren't paying any attention to me, so I wandered off on my own to see if I there was anyplace where my tattoo would start to glow. I wanted to be quick about it, so I could get back in time for when we skipped town to escape the Imperial Knights and the Red-eyes. Or back on Earth in time for the dining hall late night hours. Either worked.

Ugh, no clothes shopping again. Complaining about that sort of thing is unlike me, but I wanted to get something that didn't stand out so much, or at least have a change of clothes. Not much fun walking around with people staring at the old blood stains in your shirt and pants. Though they generally disregarded that when they saw the belted daggers and the dao I was still carrying. I guess this was a normal sight in a world where travelers regularly dealt with monsters.

I'd covered most of the town without any telltale warming of my left hand. Disappointed, but not surprised, I sat on one of the fences and watched the falling petals. I think Halure is probably my favorite town in the game, the tree was so beautiful and I felt at peace despite my worries. I leaned back a bit and began humming to myself.

"Oh! Young lady, where did you get that blastia in your hair?"

"Gwah!" I shouted as I fell backwards off the fence. I tucked in and kept rolling until I was in an upright sitting position again. More or less.

"Sorry for startling you, I was just surprised to see someone wearing a blastia that looked like that." I looked up and saw a grizzled man with a scarred face. "It looks just like one someone I used to know always wore."

"Oh, so you knew Aunt Sophia." I stood up and started brushing off all the luluria petals stuck to me. "You don't look like the scholarly type, so were you a friend of Uncle Ludwig?" _I'm role playing a niece right now...crap, I hope he doesn't ask something I don't know. Beat him to the punch!_ "Can I ask who you are?"

"Arcas. I was another member of The Protectors, back in the day." He offered a hand for me to shake. I could feel rough callouses when I grasped it. "Never knew Luddie had a niece. Hell, I always assumed he was an only child."

It felt like walking a tight rope testing out my story like this. "My name's Letha. Dad was his younger brother, Sirius." NO, I was not referencing Harry Potter. I'd picked the name "Sirius" for my supposed father because I'd heard it was the brightest star back on Earth. Silly little inside joke of mine. Ludwig didn't get it, but humored me.

"They didn't really get along, and hadn't even seen each other for years. Dad and Mom died in an accident when I was a baby, so Uncle Ludwig and Aunt Sophia took me in. I've been living alone with him in that house he made by the Shaikos Ruins." I pulled myself back onto the fence I'd been using as a seat before and started kicking at the air idly.

"Damn, sorry to hear that." Arcas leaned against the fence and looked up at the tree. "How's old Luddie been doing? He was pretty devastated when he lost Sophia."

I thought carefully about my answer. I had known Ludwig for less than three weeks, but Arcas was asking me about a life time that had never really happened. For all I knew, Ludwig was still only a shadow of his former self. "...I think he's probably feeling lonely, now that I'm gone. It was just before I left that he gave me Aunt Sophia's blastia. I didn't even know he was keeping it until then..."

"Maybe it's about time I drop by for a visit, though he might not be happy to see me. I'll go with my boy next time he's got some free time from work." He slapped a hand against his leg. It sounded a bit wooden to me. "You ought to stop by our place for dinner! I'd like to introduce the niece of an old comrade to my wife and son!" His eyes twinkled as he winked at me. "My boy's about your age, y'know, and real easy on the eyes."

I laughed at Arcas' heavy handed but well meaning matchmaking skills. "I'd love to, but I'm not sure how long I'll be staying. I'm only passing through today." I leaned back and smiled up at the huge tree protecting this town. "I'd like to come back someday, though. Make a few paintings of the scenery... Maybe I'll take you up on your offer then."

"Ha! Who'd have thought Luddie's niece would be an artist! You must take after someone else in your family!" He clapped a hand on my shoulder, almost knocking me of the fence again. "We'll be watching for you, so bring along one of your paintings or I'll never believe it!"

"Hey, I'm not totally unlike him! I'm a fighter, that I am!" I said proudly, thumping myself in the chest. "But writing and drawing are my hobbies. Oh!" I pulled my bag into my lap as an idea occurred to me. "If you do go visit Uncle Ludwig, could you give him a letter for me?" I pulled a scrap of paper out and began scribbling on it as fast as my short familiarity with Tercan writing would allow me.

"Sure thing. I'll let him know you look good and healthy too."

_**Dear Uncle Ludwig the Samaritan,**_

_**I'm doing just fine, went to Aspio and just arrived in Halure.**_

_**I had a rough start, but your fighting lessons and some nice people I met helped me out a lot. I lost the daggers you gave me, I'm real sorry about that. I found some replacements, so you don't have to worry about me being unarmed.**_

_**Have you ever been to Halure before? All the flowers are blooming right now, I can't believe how beautiful it is. Though it seems the town was attacked by monsters recently, so people are busy rebuilding right now.**_

_**Are you doing alright? Well, I guess it's pointless to ask since you can't send a reply. I'm not even sure where I'll be in a few days. But I'll come back to see you again, so be sure you're healthy when I do!**_

_**Letha**_

I folded the letter and gave it to Arcas, sheepishly adding, "Uh, could you not tell him I'm still dressed like this? He didn't like hearing that I planned to wear these clothes while traveling. He doesn't think they suit me."

He laughed boisterously while tucking the letter into his belt. "Don't worry about that, Letha, your secret's safe!" He winked at me again, "Though I'd bet there's many young men who'd like to see you follow your uncle's advice." Dammit, that made me blush, and he was still laughing as he left.

How long had I been wandering the streets of Halure? I hopped off the fence and hurried back to the entrance where I hoped to find Estelle going tête-à-tête with some Imperial Knights. ...Wait, did I use that phrase right?

Well, Yuri would throw rocks at people. If he didn't, I would. Target practice, that's all Tweedles A and B are good for.

x x x

I feel like this could have been done better...but I wanted to get out of Aspio and on route. Trying to make a time line that's realistic for world travel while remaining consistent with the game's events is such a headache... Let me know if I slip up anywhere?

Eh heheheh. Yeah, Yuri's suspicious of Letha. Because it's no fun if things go too smoothly, and he really would realize something's up with her.

And is that potential romance in the air? I'm not telling (or do I just not know?), though I'll guarantee I don't plan to hook Letha up with any of the main characters. Don't think I'm their type.

Arcas is named after something I came across when looking up the star Arcturus. He seriously makes me think of a dwarf. Not supposed to be one, but I bet he fights with a big hammer. A hammer named Ursa. Look up Arcturus on Wiki and you should get it...


	8. Chapter 8: People in High Demand

Chapter 8: People That Are in High Demand

x x x

When I reached Halure's entrance, I saw Yuri standing with his sword over the Tweedles, Adecor and Boccos, who were sprawled on the ground. "I'm sorry, I can't go back." Estelle was apologizing to them. _I'm gonna tell her later that she apologizes too much_.

Leblanc tried to encourage the men to keep fighting, but Rita threw a fireball at them. "She says she's not going back, so get lost!" Karol stared at her aghast, unable to believe she'd attack Imperial Knights.

"Yuri! It's them again!" The princess cried as she saw the Red-eyes up the hill. _Wait, there's only supposed to be assassins on that hill, but there's another sneaking up from the other side!_

"Damn it, I knew they were still after us," Yuri scowled. _Shit, he doesn't see the other one!_

"What is it this time?" Rita put her hands on her hips, focused on Yuri and not paying attention to the man. She didn't know the danger yet!

"Wh-what do you mean?" Karol wasn't looking the right way to see the one behind them either!

I ran towards them desperately, drawing my daggers. "_Yuri! Behind you!_" He saw me running at them from the bridge, and quickly turned at my shout. Just in time to catch the rippling curve of the blade on his sword.

"These guys are a pain!" I reached them just then and stood ready by his side, but Yuri was able to deal with the assassin without my help, smashing the hilt of his sword into the Red-eyes face. He looked at the others, "I'll explain later! Karol, which way is Nor Harbor?"

Flustered, Karol looked back at Yuri, "Uh, ah, it's west! West! You go over Ehmead Hill and Capua Nor is right there."

Yuri turned to me, "Find what you were looking for on your walk?"

"Nope, time for me to move on."

"Then come on!" We ran for the exit, Estelle and Rita lagging behind, but at least they were following. Yuri stopped by the knights to arrange a cover for our retreat. "Imperial Knight Point # 1: 'With this sword I shall protect the people,' wasn't it?"

Leblanc saw the assassins giving chase and understood Yuri's meaning. "Indeed! Come on boys, let's show them what the Imperial Knights are made of!" he roared and threw his arm in a commanding gesture. Adecor and Boccos charged, and I heard Estelle whispering "sorry" again as she paused to look back at them, then we were all making for the hills.

x x x

_**Going the Same Way**_

_Rita: So why are you still with us?_

_Letha: Aw, Rita, and here I thought you cared about me after what happened in the ruins. You even fed me!_

_Rita: Why should I care? Weren't you going to go your own way once we got to Halure?_

_Letha: I am. Just happens that my way is the same as yours._

_Rita: Well, at least you're more useful than the runt._

_Letha: See! I knew you cared, somewhere deep, deep down inside! Real deep!_

_Rita: I take it back, you're still a pain!_

_*Rita leaves*_

_Letha: Wow, you're so gonna hate it when Raven shows up. And eventually I'll probably be the weakest one here..._

x x x

_Ehmead Hill, huh, nothing real bad happens here, right? Just some of Rita's shenanigans?_ I had been keeping near the back of the group while we crossed the plains between Halure and Ehmead. My boots may have been awesomely sturdy considering they were mostly for show, but they weren't the most comfortable things after running from assassins for hours.

Karol and Rita were bickering over whether there was a barrier blastia here, of course I knew there had been but Judith had paid a visit recently so it was busted. When Estelle picked up on the name Karol dropped into the conversation (heheh, I was kinda looking forward to teasing him about Nan, myself) the little guild ace was quick to run off and "find information." The genius mage couldn't resist going ahead with him to investigate.

"All right, never mind us, guys. I'm not gonna go look for them if they get lost," said our poor chaperon, Yuri. He'd probably lose half the kids on a school field trip.

"Shall we, Yuri?" Every time I hear that line, I half expect Estelle to take Yuri's arm in that formal lady being escorted by a gentleman fashion.

We followed behind the two youngest members and caught up to them as Rita exercised her genius status to get near the still smoking blastia. She brushed off the poor assistant and sent him running in confusion for someone with more authority.

"Huh, I could use some of her attitude," Yuri observed.

"I think you have plenty already..." said our favorite princess. Screw Peach and Zelda, they get kidnapped way too...oh, right, Estelle needs to be rescued later too. Ohh-kay, never mind.

"That wanted poster says you have five thousand gald worth of attitude," I quipped. "Hell, after Heliore it might go up!"

"You think so?" the swordsman asked me hopefully. I shrugged, rather than tell him the price on his poorly drawn head doubles. Is he a good influence on the kids, or a bad one?

"Hey! Listen to this!" Karol came flying in from behind. _Huh? When did we pass him? _ "It was like bam! A spear went thunk! The blastia went bang! And he flew off into the sky like whoosh!"

Yuri blinked at the rush of disconnected thoughts. "Who did what how... huh?"

"I think someone gave the boy too much sugar..." I mumbled. Even knowing what he was trying to tell us, it went by so fast I hardly caught any of it.

"Someone riding a flying dragon," he said again a bit slower, "threw a giant spear at the blastia! And then just flew off!"

"A human riding a dragon?" Yuri scoffed, "No way." I noted the knights running by us. Weren't those Captain Schwann's colors? They were browner looking than I thought...

"I've never heard of anything like that before." _I have, Estelle. That sort of thing is popular fiction material back home_. Another researcher (I'd say judging by the robes) ran by.

"That's what I thought too, but a bunch of people here saw it happen! They say it was a 'dragon rider.'"

"Uh, guys?" I tried to point out the little parade to them. Dang me for having a quiet voice.

"A dragon rider... Hmmm. Well, the world's just full of surprises." And there goes Yuri, accepting off the wall stories again.

Rita's angry shout got their attention, "Hey! What do you think you're doing? Let me go!"

"There she goes again," Karol said in a sing-songish voice.

"Something is definitely strange with this blastia formula!" _How can she tell? And did she ever explain what is strange about it?_

"There's nothing strange at all. Perhaps you are..."

"Just who do you think I am!" Rita cut off the nameless man in robes. As sharped tongue and sure of herself as ever, despite having knights menacing her to either side.

"I'm well aware of who you are. The famed genius mage, correct? But surely there are some formulas that even you aren't familiar with!" Such a patronizing tone!

"Shouldn't we do something?" I asked.

"What do you suggest we do?" Yuri looked away from the drama to ask me.

"Umm, throw rocks at them?" I shrugged.

"You can't use a weird formula like this! Think of the poor blastia!" _She probably means the formula makes the blastia unstable or something; putting it, and incidentally any bystanders, in danger of the explosive sort_.

"H-hey! Stop gawking and help us catch her!" another nameless man demanded. Other knights started to converge on the scene.

_Yay! Now Karol jumps into action, since we seem to be disregarding my rock throwing suggestion._ The boy ran into the middle of the road to yell at the knights, "Fire! Hey, fiiiiire!"

Instead of running in circles panicking the knights turned to look at us. "What's with that kid?"

"A fire? I don't hear anything or smell anything..." _No offense Karol, but I'm glad to see that old trick pony not working for once..._

"Hey! You little liar!"

"Crap...they caught on that fast?" The boy looked surprised that the obvious trick didn't work.

"Maybe we should have lit a real fire first," I mused. Karol didn't bother responding to me as he was already running away from several knights. A couple of them stopped just before passing us by.

"Hey! You're with that kid..." said one looking at Yuri. His friend grabbed me by the wrist. _Crap, probably 'cause I made that joke about setting a fire_. "Wait a minute... You—there's a warrant for your-" He didn't finish as I had created a lovely distraction by using kotegaeshi on the knight very rudely grabbing me. In simple terms, I used some interesting foot work and moved his arm and wrist in such a way that he found himself flying over backwards. To the uninformed observer, I'd just taken a step or two forward while turning away and then back again.

Yuri used the opening I'd made to charge the knight still holding Rita and give him a chop to the back of the neck with his hand. "It's now or never..." he told her and they both ran. The knight that had recognized Yuri tried to get in their way, but was jumped from behind by Repede.

"I'm sorry," Estelle called back at them as we all made for the bushes on the side of the trail.

"Hey! Stop goofing off and help catch that kid!" was the last thing I heard before we got too far to hear the rest of the commotion we'd caused.

"Phew, looks like we lost 'em."

"Rita, you should really think more before you act!" Estelle gasped.

The mage was panting with her head lowered, "...That barrier blastia was just so strange, I couldn't help myself..."

I was content to let them have their conversation while I worked to steady my breathing without falling over. I'd been doing too much running lately, I have terrible stamina for that...

"Strange? Something fishy about it?" the swordsman questioned her.

"I have a feeling that may be an understatement." _Ooh, I'd call that foreshadowing_.

"Well, our hands are already full as it is, so could you please keep us out of it?"

Not liking Yuri's tone, Rita turned away, "...It doesn't concern you regardless."

Then Leblanc's bellowing voice came from nowhere, "Yuri Looowell! Where have you run off to now?" Glancing back towards the road we got a glimpse of him through the bushes.

"Hey, Mr. Famous, sounds like you've got a fan out there." The grudge holding mage was certainly quick to get back at people.

"Again?" the infamous man sighed, "That guy gives a new meaning to the word 'workaholic.'"

"It's just that much fun to yell Yuri's name at the top of your lungs." He gave me an unamused look. _I'm starting to feel like Raven's place holder. It probably means we'll hit it off great when he joins, but I should try harder to establish myself as a useful and intelligent team player_. Easier said then done, when I was afraid of giving away something I wasn't supposed to know yet.

Tweedle A for Adecor went by next, yelling for Estelle almost as loudly as Leblanc, "Lady Estelliiiise! I say, do come out of hiding!"

"You guys have a lot of problems!" Rita gave the fugitive pair an incredulous look, "Just who are you, anyway?"

"Umm, well, I'm..."

Tweedle B for Boccos next, "Yuuuri, come out, come out, wherever you are!" _God, must not laugh! Must not laugh at grown men yelling "yuri!"_

"You can talk about that later!" The swordsman tried to urge us deeper into the woods, but before we could follow his lead Repede snarled at something.

"Waaaah! Wait, wait! It's me!" Karol jumped out the bushes and joined up with us again.

"...Ack, Karol...don't frighten us like that!" Our princess scolded the boy and Rita lowered her defensively (or should I say offensively in her case?) raised arms.

"Anyway, let's get our butts to Nor Harbor before things get any more complicated," Yuri said, trying again to get us moving. _Ugh, they're taking too long..._ I zoned out while waiting for us to finally get somewhere.

We eventually moved on, picking our way through the narrow beast trail while occasionally fighting off giant ladybugs, more giant bird monsters, and some kind of hermit-crab-monkey things. _I always did like hiking_.

x x x

_**Who is Nan?**_

_Karol: ...Hey, Estelle. I noticed you keep looking in my direction—what's up?_

_Estelle: You don't mind if I ask? All right, well then...here goes. This "Nan"... Are you in love with her?_

_Karol: Ack... *hack* *cough* *choke*_

_Estelle: Nan is a girl's name, right? Is she the girl you wanted to show Halure's flowers to...?_

_Karol: Waaaaaa! No, no, no! You got it all wrong!_

_Estelle: I do?_

_Karol: Man, she'd be so angry if she heard you say that..._

_Estelle: Karol, good luck with her! I'm rooting for you!_

_Karol: Uh, yeah...well, thanks. That's encouraging._

_**A Girl Knows These Things**_

_Letha: Something wrong Karol?_

_Karol: What? Nothing!_

_Letha: ...Let me guess, afraid you'll get jumped by Estelle again?_

_Karol: H-how'd you know?_

_Letha: She has a good sense of women's intuition. I'm not surprised she's excited, most girls like stories about young lovers._

_Karol: Y-young lo—that's not it! A-and you're a girl too! Why haven't you been asking me anything?_

_Letha: Meh, Estelle's better at getting answers out of you than I am. Must be because she seems so innocent._

x x x

When we found the giant flower thing (that I uneasily thought looked kind of carnivorous) Rita played her little prank on Karol that left him stunned and confused for awhile.

While we waited it out, Yuri snapped his fingers as if remembering something. "Hey, Letha."

"Mm-huh? Wha?" I turned away slightly in order to discretely hide the notebook I'd been scribbling in. I like to carry one around to keep ideas in, or just to occasionally draw something, but it's embarrassing to show the raw ideas to people. Just then I'd been trying to sketch what the piece of the fairy heirloom looked like.

"What was that move you used on that knight? I haven't seen something like that before."

"Oh, that was a kotegaeshi." I tucked the book back into my bag. "It's one of the more basic moves of Aikido." I grimaced a little, "But I didn't do it quite right..."

"What was wrong with it?"

"For one thing I've never tried it on someone wearing armor before and I hurt my hands a bit. For another I didn't have as much control over him as I could, and probably hurt him more than I intended. So sloppy of me..."

There was a moment of silence, I think they were trying to process how odd it sounded that I was mad at myself for hurting someone with an attack. I shrugged, "Aikido is almost entirely defensive counters, designed to protect yourself without causing your opponent damage. After all, you never know when today's enemy will be tomorrow's ally."

"I guess that makes sense...could you show me how to do it?"

I stood up and slipped out of my jacket and vest, "Sure thing, though I don't think it really suits your style much." The rest of the time we waited for Karol to snap out of it I spent surprising everyone by demonstrating how easily I could toss the bigger swordsman around.

"Though if we were in a real fight, you'd probably beat me anyway," I assured him.

"I think it might be more trouble than it's worth," he winced at the surprising strength in my grip. I smiled sweetly at him.

x x x

_**The Dragon Rider**_

_Yuri: Man, some people have some weird hobbies. I mean, who goes around destroying blastia?_

_Estelle: I wouldn't really call that a hobby._

_Rita: If we ever come across whoever's doing this, I'll destroy him!_

_Karol: But what if he has some reason for what he's doing?_

_Rita: They can have any reason they want, destroying blastia is unforgivable! Period!_

_*Rita rushes up to Karol and grabs him by the handkerchief around his neck. Makes a rubbery tightening sound*_

_Karol: Ack, my, my neck! My neck! Waaaaaghh! Ack, heeeelp meee, Yuri!_

_Yuri: Meh, that'd take effort. Just play nice with each other, kids._

_Karol: Estelle..._

_Estelle: Umm...do your best, Karol!_

_Karol: Letha...?_

_Letha: But then she'd be after me..._

x x x

It wasn't until the ground began shaking that it occurred to me. _You know, probably, just probably, Ehmead Hill had a monster boss we're supposed to defeat. Dammit, I was hoping that since it's technically not a game anymore we wouldn't have to fight an epic battle at every new place we find_. Of course I wouldn't be that lucky.

"Gyaaaah!" Snap. Karol was looking up on top of a cliff to our right. "Th-that's one of the monsters that attacked Halure village!" It looked like a big purple dog to me. A really big dog. With really big teeth.

"A survivor, huh?" Yuri concluded. Those really big teeth looked kinda nasty and yellow...and so did the really big claws...

"If we leave it here it'll surely go back, and try to attack Halure again..." said Rita. _I think it's planning on chewing on us first...crap, we've invaded its territory_.

"But Halure has the barrier protecting it now." Karol pointed out, trying to remind us that the point of the barriers was to deal with monsters like the big doggie.

"Even so, how are the people of Halure supposed to sleep at night with beasts like this crawling around just outside the barrier?" The swordsman was pressing for us to do something reckless for other people.

I opened my mouth, wanting to make some objection of my own, when I remembered Ludwig's voice telling me something. _"Just make sure you use it and the skills I taught you to help people while you travel."_ "Ah, shit." I drew my daggers.

The Giant Doggie roared at us and jumped down, a pack of smaller nasty doggies right behind it.

One of the smaller ones went directly for me. I tried jumping to the side and slashing at it with a dagger. The blade cut deep, so deep it caught on a bone and was wrenched out of my hand. _Uh oh_. Unfortunately, though it was a terrible wound it wasn't a fatal one. The wounded monster turned to me and snarled furiously.

"Uh, nothing personal?" Not appeased it lunged at me. I was knocked off my feet, but somehow managed to raise my remaining dagger to stab it in the throat before it could savage me with its fangs. I was buried under its dead weight, with its still hot blood dripping on me. _Oh God, I don't think I'll ever manage to forget this!_

I pushed the dead monster off me just enough I could wriggle out from under the carcass. When I stood up, I was looking into the dark red eyes of Giant Doggie. And I had just realized I'd lost my other dagger.

"I blame everything on you, Nevi."

x x x

Nyahahaha! I love being evil!

A cliffhanger. I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't leave you all with a cliffhanger. It's my promise that I'll come back with more~ Just I want to rework the chapters I have for after this, so I'm not sure when I'll put them up.


	9. Chapter 9: Food For Thought

Chapter 9: Food For Thought

x x x

Giant Doggie and I stared each other down for a few seconds. I was inwardly shrieking at myself _don't back down, don't back down, show a sign of weakness and it'll EAT YOU!_ Its claws flexed a little, as if it were getting ready to pounce. My mental capacities were reduced to something more like white noise as I ripped the dao from my belt and charged.

I held the curving blade in both hands and brought it down through the air in a long, diagonal slash. If I'd been more, well, sane, I'd have berated myself for using a risky move that left me open. However whatever was left of my mind was thinking back to the fight with Gollum. I unconsciously expelled my breath in a steady but forceful stream of air directed straight in front of me, like I do during warm up exercises for Aikido, and imagined my energy was extending beyond the blade.

A thick line of green energy was left in the wake of my dao, cutting into the oversized monster. It reeled back, and snarled at me. For a moment, I couldn't do anything but gape at the sword in my hands.

"Don't get careless!" Yuri came darting in from the side and slashed a smaller doggie that had been about to jump me while I was distracted.

"Sorry, thanks!"

"Now we're even for Halure," he said simply, and then started attacking Giant Doggie while yelling, "Wolf Strike!"

I turned to another of the smaller ones, leaving Yuri to his fun with the really tough monster, and started trying to get a feel for the dao in my hand. It could be used with either one or both hands, and what I could remember from seeing other people using it (aka, Ludwig and martial arts movies) it was good for slashing strikes (that to me looked a bit similar to Yuri's style with a katana) and thrusts if necessary.

I slashed, and used the blade's momentum to spin the blade around in my hand so that it came around in a large circle for another identical strike. If I hadn't been a dork and played around with my umbrella back home just like this, I probably would have dropped the dao. I didn't want to push my luck and go for more than two strikes just yet.

Still, I was rather clumsy with the less familiar weapon, and had been chewed on quite a bit before I killed the smaller doggie. It managed to bite my left hand and break the skin (_shitshitshit OWOWOWOW)_, though when I popped an apple gel into my mouth it healed over with the tattoo perfectly intact. The killing blow was a less impressive reproduction of the green-line-slash thing I did before. _Do rabies exist in this world? Damn, am I gonna have to get a shot, or will I turn into a monster once the moon is full..._

Panting heavily, I looked back at the others. All the smaller doggies were dead, some heavily scorched but most were heavily cut and chopped, and it seemed the rest of the group was concentrating on Giant Doggie. Karol had intelligently been throwing pollen from the Billybally leaf Rita had introduced him to earlier into the monster's face.

I gripped my dao and took a step forward to join them, when suddenly I was hit by a wave of vertigo and a pressure that felt liked it gripped my lungs.

"_Aagh..._" I dropped to my knees and gasped desperately. "Dammit, it's-it's worse than last time..." Hadn't my attacks been getting better? The dao clattered on the ground as it fell from my hand, and I closed my eyes. I didn't pass out entirely, but the world seemed to fade as if I'd been partly removed from it all.

There were voices, but they were too distant for me to understand. I kinda felt warm...and the voices got a bit clearer. "_I've healed her wounds, but there's something else wrong with her." "Maybe she breathed in some of the pollen?" "I don't think so. She wasn't that close to us, and there aren't anymore of those flowers here."_

"Should we wait until she's better?" The words finally started making sense to me, and I opened my eyes. I was lying on the ground, with Estelle kneeling next to me. Evidently she'd just finished healing all of my bite wounds. Everyone else was a bit further away, but kept looking over in concern.

"I'm alright, don't worry..." I sat up. Estelle tried to keep me from moving as Yuri turned back and gave me a level stare.

"You weren't 'alright' at all just a minute ago! What was that all about?"

Despite still feeling a bit dizzy I gently brushed off Estelle's hands and stood up. I didn't want to be the reason the group forced an early stop, or let them think I was chronically ill and shouldn't be traveling around. "I really am fine, just need to walk it off and I'll be my strange and random self again."

They didn't look convinced, but the princess conceded to my stubbornness, "If you say so..."

While we were walking again, Karol came up and tugged the sleeve of my jacket. "What's up, Ace?" _I think I just found my new nickname for him. Can't call him Captain without feeling like I'm ripping off Yuri_.

The boy held up my daggers, already cleaned of any blood. "I picked these up for you." My eyes probably lit up like lamps.

"Thanks, Karol! It would have sucked if I lost this pair too." I slipped them back into place and ruffled his hair with one hand.

"Aww, it's nothing." He hesitated, and then asked, "Hey, Letha, why do you talk like that?"

"Huh? Like what?" I didn't have an accent, right? It's not like anyone I'd met here sounded distinctly different from me (Yeager and Cumore don't count).

"You kind of talk like Yuri." I blinked, _what was that?_ "You're rude sometimes, though you're not as bad as Yuri is, and you swear too." Hmm, I had been trying not to swear as much in front of them but I apparently slipped up a few times.

I might have gaped at him like a fish for a second or two. Then, with a laugh, I ruffled his hair again (dang it, at this rate he'll be one of those people whose hair isn't safe from me...). "I talk differently depending on the people I'm with. If it's someone I think deserves respect, I'm polite. If it's someone I don't respect, I'm sharp tongued and rude, or just ignore them. And 'rude' for me is actually a lot worse than anything you've heard me say yet. The way I've been talking around you guys means I'm comfortable." _And that fact really surprises me..._

"Really? That's kind of weird..."

"You don't even know the half of it yet, Ace."

x x x

_**Dog Language**_

_Estelle: Repede's getting really good at handling items, don't you think?_

_Rita: Yeah. But I don't wanna eat any gels that've been in a dog's mouth!_

_Repede: *Woof!*_

_Yuri: He said, "Come on, don't be like that. If things go bad, take it!"_

_Rita: That's one big mouth he's- Wait a minute... Did he really say that? All I heard him do was bark._

_Yuri: Stick around long enough and you'll figure him out. Right, Repede?_

_Repede: *WOOF!*_

_Rita: ..._

_Estelle: You look a little jealous, Rita._

_Rita: N-no way!_

x x x

The same selection of monsters (birds, hermit monkeys, etc.) occasionally attacked after that, but I stayed on the side lines out of everyone's way. I would have fought, even though I still felt a bit light headed, but Yuri and Estelle both gave me the evil eye when they saw my hands reaching for my weapons. It was kinda scary that the princess could give a look like that while still appearing innocent and polite...

I hadn't been paying attention to where we were going, so it was a surprise when we exited a narrow ravine and found ourselves looking out at the ocean. It wasn't my first time seeing the ocean, but that didn't mean I couldn't appreciate the experience.

Unlike in the game, where it was still the middle of the day when they stood on this cliff, the sun was starting to set. Actually, the view reminded me of watching the sunset on Lake Ontario...oh, no, home sickness... I had to turn away quickly.

"It's beautiful..." breathed Estelle.

"This is..." Even the tough little mage sounded a bit awed.

"Look, Yuri. It's the ocean."

"I can see that. ...The wind feels great."

I walked down the path a bit, leaving all of them to appreciate the view and have their individual moments of new world perspective.

A trifle bitter? Maybe. I was the only one who hadn't the luxury of choosing to be on this journey. And I had to deal with this mysterious health problem on top of everything.

Knowing I couldn't handle any monsters on my own yet, I didn't go too far. I reached Elucifer's grave and stopped there to wait for the others. This probably sounds weird, but the grave comforted me. Back home (my real home, not my school but my hometown,) my house was right next to a cemetery. There was a shallow brook and ravine between, but for as long as I could remember it had been a simple matter to cross over. For me gravestones give a subconscious feeling of homecoming.

I knelt down in front of it, studying how the stone had been worn down by the elements. _How many years until it wears away? Will the cliff erode away first, and leave the grave to fall into the ocean?_ "You gave up your life for your cause ten years ago... I wonder what you'd have to say to me, who knows what's wrong with this world but won't tell anyone..." The wind blew my hair into my eyes, and I took a deep breath of the salty air.

"Letha, why'd you leave?"

I looked over my shoulder at Karol, "Look, I found something."

"What's this supposed to be?"

"Is it a...grave, perhaps?" the princess ventured.

"Looks like."

"A grave?" Yuri walked up. "In a place like this?"

Rita looked at it with her arms crossed. "Actually, this is just the type of place I'd expect to see one."

Karol shifted his attention to her. "What do you mean?"

"You know, like the grave of someone who plotted against the empire...and failed." She elaborated further with, "If you wanted to bury somebody and keep it quiet, you'd want a place like this with no one around."

"But would you bother to mark that place with a grave, if that were the case?" I said thoughtfully. The game led me to assume that Duke had buried Elucifer, but it was possible someone else had done it and he'd just found out it was here.

"Huh, wonder if that's what I've got in store for me." Yuri commented dryly.

Estelle turned on him and said sharply, "Don't say such things...! That isn't funny!"

"I wasn't exactly kidding." He then tried to mollify her by explaining himself. "It's just a fact of life that some folks from the lower quarter never get a funeral or a proper burial."

"What happens to them, then?" asked our little Guild Ace.

"They get cremated and have their ashes scattered over a river or a field, usually."

"Are you telling the truth...?" the sheltered princess asked, as if thinking he was playing another prank.

"...How did we get started talking about this, anyway?" broke in Rita impatiently.

Karol turned back to the grave. "Cause we're trying to figure what a lone grave is doing in a place like this."

I stood up, brushing off my pants, and turned away from them all. "I can think of another reason. If this was that person's favorite place to be when alive, someone might bury them here to watch the ocean forever." I don't know if that was right, and I doubt I'll ever even dare to ask Duke, but it was a thought.

"Huh, that's possible. So, just who does it belong to..?" Yuri directed the question at me, probably because I'd been the one to draw their collective attention to it. I just shrugged.

"Dunno, and if there was ever a name on it, it's been worn away." I turned away from the grave and the ocean again. "Let's go then?"

x x x

_**A Great View**_

_Estelle: Letha, you didn't seem very impressed by the ocean earlier. Do you not like water?_

_Letha: What makes you think that?_

_Estelle: Well, you looked kind of upset when you first saw it, and you left before us..._

_Karol: Oh, maybe she was afraid of the water! Don't you know how to swim, Letha?_

_Letha: *cough* Wh-why are you jumping to conclusions like that! I've known how to swim almost as long as I can remember, and I'm certainly not afraid of the water. I love it actually._

_Estelle: Then what was wrong? Are you still feeling sick? I can heal you some more!_

_Letha: Ack, Estelle, no! I'm fine! Just I've seen it before and was reminded of some things!_

_Karol: Like what?_

_Letha: Oh my, Karol you really shouldn't ask about a girl's secrets that easily. Though that reminds me, maybe Nan would like it if you took her to see that view._

_Karol: Wha? No, that's-that's-!_

_Estelle: That's a great idea!_

We'd finally reached the end of the beast trail, which was only a little ways uphill from where the wrecked blastia lay smoldering. I noticed Rita looking that way murmuring "poor Ekaterine." Yeah, she named that blastia in the, what was it?, five minutes she'd had to look at it.

We'd taken only a few steps when she nearly tripped over something lying on the roadside. "What's this?" she bent over to look at it. _Huh, the tent is here...maybe it was dropped by one of the knights earlier_.

"Oh, that's a camping set!" and Karol launched into his explanation about tents and their pseudo barriers that kept monsters away with smells. Seeing as it was late and we were all tired, we found a good spot off the road to set up camp for the night.

We were all very hungry. But Estelle was still new to the cooking business, and Rita's sense of cooking was suspect (worse than a college student living off ramen noodles and slightly moldy bread, she just didn't care enough to put more effort in). Karol was setting up the tent, so he was exempt.

So that left dinner to either Yuri or me.

He glanced at me, clearly wondering if I'd survived on my own cooking while supposedly living in the forest with my uncle. Maybe he was even having an internal debate whether to brave my unknown skills just so he wouldn't have to cook for once. I'm sure his experience with Flynn makes him wary of every unfamiliar new chef.

"What ingredients do we have, anyway?" I figured this was the best way to decide. Cooking would be impossible for me if we didn't have ingredients for anything I was familiar with. "And do we even have anything like pots and pans?" I knew a few things I would make at home, though they weren't all feasible in Terca Lumireis, but I'd also picked up a few recipes staying with Ludwig. I'd wanted to make sure I wouldn't starve... Once, Wonder Chef showed up and showed me how to make noodles from scratch. I can't even put into words how awesome that was. After Ludwig and I got over the whole "how the flip did you get into the house?" thing.

It turned out I was cooking that night after all. We had chicken (which surprised me) and we had rice so I jumped at the chance to make one of my favorite meals, which I think I'd have to try pretty hard to screw up. Don't ask me how he managed to carry it all, but Karol kept some collapsible cooking utensils in his bag. Nifty stuff I'd bet my Dad would love to use when camping.

While we were eating (and nobody started spitting my food back out, so mission success) I sat a little apart from the others. Why? I just like eating by myself sometimes. Most of the time, actually, but normally when I'm already with other people I can eat together with them just fine. But tonight I wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

_So far there haven't been any nasty surprises other than falling through the Shaikos Ruins' floor. It's probably safe to believe that nothing major in the game was changed by me being here. Not yet at least._ But what about later on? It was entirely possible I had changed something important without even knowing it, or that I eventually would.

_And is there anything I want to actively try and change? Like Belius and Don Whitehorse dying, Estelle getting kidnapped, or Yuri getting stabbed... I don't remember right now if there's any huge massacre like in some of the other Tales games...but if there is, can I do something? _Should_ I do something and risk changing the "happy" ending?_

_I've always thought messing with the past was a bad idea, and I wonder if this counts..._

Yuri came over and sat next to me, and somehow the first thought in my mind was _Time for round two. Sooner than I expected_. "I'm surprised. You don't strike me as the domestic type."

I swallowed a mouthful of rice, "I dabble in some things. For example; I taught myself to sew when I was a kid, and I'm pretty good at it." Took another bite, chewed, and swallowed, "Though you're kinda right. I don't cook often. But it's hard to mess up a simple recipe if you just follow the instructions."

"Some people can't seem to even do that..." Poor Yuri, growing up with Flynn and his nonexistent sense of taste. I resolved that if I ever ended up traveling with Flynn and it was his turn to cook, I'd _force_ him out of the kitchen and make dinner myself. Even if I had to say straight to his face that I didn't trust him with my food.

Swallowed again, then I put my plate aside so I could turn and look the swordsman directly in the eyes. "You didn't come to talk about the fine art of cooking. We both know it. So what do you really want to ask?" He eyed me, maybe reassessing his measure of how intelligent I was. I hoped he was raising it, instead of lowering it. "For some reason, you don't trust me. I'm sure you have your reasons, but instead of fishing like this you could just _ask_ me about whatever's bugging you."

"And you'd tell me, just like that?"

I hesitated. _There's a lot of questions I can't answer truthfully. But still_, "Well that depends on what you want to ask me, now doesn't it?" I fixed him with what I hoped was a stern eye. "Of course I'm not going to answer personal questions you have no business knowing, but if it's related to any of you, then yes, I will answer."

Expecting this to be the moment of truth I waited as he considered me with narrowed eyes. He seemed to be about to say something, but then he shook his head and stood up. "You're not going to hurt any of us. I trust you that much." And he walked away.

I stared after him. _Then what the HELL was that about?_

x x x

The next day was a long day. A long day of walking and fighting and odd conversations about hair. ...Yuri was the one who woke me up in the morning, and I started pestering him about his "chick magnet hair" while I was still half asleep. I blame whoever wrote that fanfiction starring a drunk Estelle.

After that I spent most of the time just humming to myself between fights (I tried practicing with the dao a few more times, but mostly stuck with my daggers) and denying both my weird hair comment and the humming whenever one of the others asked. Estelle had started to give me speculative looks...I was afraid to ask what that was about.

We made it to Capua Nor that evening, and surprise, surprise, it was raining. I like the rain, I really do, but my hair doesn't. Daydreaming about new clothes with a hood and waterproofed boots, I hadn't paid much attention to the conversation the others were having. I tuned back in when Karol was about to explain the reason Nor Harbor was such a downer. "Nor Harbor is... It's all because of the empire."

Before he could continue we heard voices across the street. "I told you what would happen to that little brat if you didn't have our money!"

"Please, sir! Not that! Please, give me back my son!" Right, the poor family victimized by a corrupt system. "With this awful weather the last few months, we haven't been able to launch the boats." The man was Teagle, if I remembered correctly. "Surely you realize sir, we can't hope to pay our taxes like this."

"You'd better hurry up and capture that Rhybgaro beast then, shouldn't you?" Sneered the hired thug, not the least impressed by Teagle's speech.

"That's right. If you sell his horn, you'll never have to worry about taxes again. How many times do we have to tell you?" Teagle bowed his head, despairing, as the two thugs swaggered off.

"Savages..." fumed Rita.

"Is that the sort of scum you were talking about, Karol?" There was a hard tone to Yuri's voice. It reminded me of a comment I'd seen on Youtube when watching the playthrough. _"When Judith goes for a walk, something explodes. When Yuri goes for a walk, someone dies."_

"Yeah, the empire's influence is really strong here. I heard things got even worse with the new magistrate. He's some imperial big shot who does whatever he wants."

"Which means there's no one to complain to if his henchmen act like that." Rita crossed her arms and glared in the direction the men had left.

Yuri growled a bit, clenching his hands as if imagining he had them around the necks of the thugs or the corrupt official.

"But how can that be...?" questioned our naïve princess.

Yuri walked down the street towards the poor couple. He walked with purpose in his step, _engaging operation do a good deed by pretending to be a jerk!_ Husband and wife were arguing, she was trying to get him to wait until he was recovered before monster hunting, but he ran in our direction (aka, the city gate) and was tripped by Yuri.

"Oww... What are you trying to do?" Teagle snapped.

Yuri turned away and (with poor acting in my opinion) said, "Oh, sorry about that. Didn't see you there."

"Yuri!" Estelle scolded as she ran over. She knelt next to the bandaged man, "My apologies, sir. Let me take care of that." _Operation success!_ I thought as Estelle used her artes to heal him.

"B-but I... I can't afford this treatment..." protested his wife, who's name I can't remember.

"Don't you have something else to say?" cut in Yuri impatiently.

"Huh...?" she looked up at him in confusion.

"Jeez... You guys been robbed of your manners along with your money?"

Understanding now, she stood and bowed to Estelle. "...I-I'm sorry. Thank you most kindly." She helped Teagle stand up.

"Huh..? Yuri?" Karol was looking around. I blinked and looked back where the swordsman had been leaning against the wall just a second before._ Damn, take your eyes off him for one second and he's gone._ _I guess he saw the Red-eyes in the alley_.

"He must have something he needed to do." I shrugged, and then started walking away, "As have I, actually. I'll see you guys later at the inn over there." I pointed at a sign that said "Pollux Inn."

_Right about now, Yuri should be fighting the Red-eyes, and Flynn should show up to lend him a hand_. I wanted to swing by and make sure that was really happening, but was afraid that if either of them saw me they'd ask why I didn't help. And I didn't want to risk changing that particular scene, it somehow struck me that that could have bad consequences.

So I began the process of combing town to test the glowing properties of my hand (hope that bite the other day didn't break my personal lightning bug ability). I also kept an eye open for any stores selling clothes. I should finally have some time to pick out more travel minded clothing. During my search, I found a board with various notices posted on it. I couldn't help but smile when I saw Yuri's wanted poster, which had indeed doubled to ten thousand gald.

_The description only says a man with black hair and black clothes...wouldn't it be fun to convince a bunch of people to dress like Yuri and run around with black wigs on? Drive the knights crazy..._

Turning another corner, I was looking from building to building when I heard a door crash open behind me. Before I even turned around to see what the commotion was, a pair of hands landed on my shoulders and spun me around. Startled as I was, I would have lashed out at whoever it was if not for the name he shouted.

"_Sophia!"_

x x x

Letha made sooo many mistakes here. Anyone care to count them all? Heck, I think I need to make a list to keep track of all the things she's done in the story that could tip someone off.

The random part about Yuri's hair? I checked and the fic I referenced was written by Kairikiani. Veeery funny.

Almost forgot...the bit about how Letha and Yuri talk? In the Vesperia fanfiction I've read, I had the impression that people make him swear a lot more (and a lot worse) than he does in the game. In this, I'm calling it as I see it. He swears, but not like a sailor. Letha's not being as bad as she could be. Partly because of current company, partly because no one's made her the right type of angry yet.


	10. Chapter 10: Slight Change in Plans

Like I promised AccessBlade, but this is bound to leave you with even more questions. Just wait til you see what direction my Muse is taking with this.

x x x

Chapter 10: Slight Change in Plans

x x x

"Beg pardon?" was all that was rattled out of me. This sort of thing doesn't happen to me everyday. "I don't believe I know you."

A thin man with messy red hair was staring into my face as if I were a ghost, freckles stark in a pale face and glasses already starting to fog. The wild look in his gray eyes calmed into surprise and then embarrassment. He let go and stumbled back a few steps. "O-oh! I'm sorry! I th-thought you were s-someone I used to know!" He wrung his hands as he stood in the rain with his head hung low. "I'm t-terribly sorry. But c-could you tell me wh-where you got that b-blastia?"

"Eh? My bodhi blastia?" _Again?_ "My uncle gave it to me. He said it used to belong to my aunt, Sophia." _It's a small world, after all_. No, I did NOT sing that last part in my head. Looking over the man in front of me, I guesstimated that he was maybe thirtyish years old. I suck at guessing people's ages...

"Her niece then..." This was getting weird...I couldn't even begin to figure out what the look he gave me meant. "Of course...she died years ago. But then why...?" His eyes unfocused a bit, then cleared and fixed on me again. "I'm s-sorry for the misunderstanding, but you're wearing her blastia, and you look like her." _That's the first time I heard that._ My skepticism must have shown on my face, he gave a quavering laugh. "Just from the back, your hair and the way you carry yourself is rather like her. Together with the blastia and no clear look at your face, it's possible to make such an error."

"Uh huh..." It could have been true. The only people I'd met who'd known her were Ludwig and Arcas and I don't think either of them saw me from behind before talking to me. I realized for the first time that I had no idea what Sophia had looked like.

He was giving me yet another weird look, but it was more calculating this time. "Perhaps you would be more suited to..."

"...More suited to what?"

"Hmm, do you know what your aunt was researching before she died?"

"Uhm, ancient ruins and why the blastia were buried in the first place?"

"That is correct, but there was more to it than that." He paused again, thinking some more. Getting impatient, I turned to walk away.

"If that's all you have to say, I really have to be going. I still have things to do, and then I have to get back to the inn before my friends start to think I've been mugged."

"Wait!" I looked back with a raised eyebrow. "It's not something that can be talked about here or now." _Ugh, get on with it!_ "If you would, please meet me tomorrow morning on the bridge in front of the mansion. There's something I need to tell you about your aunt's findings, a piece of her work that was stolen." Now he'd gotten to the point, he actually turned and left, leaving me standing in the rain blinking at the door he disappeared into.

"Well, hell, now what?" What he had to say wasn't as important to me as it probably would have been if I'd really been born and raised here as Sophia's niece, but I still felt like I couldn't just leave this alone.

I jammed my cold hands into my jacket's pockets and continued my search for a store.

x x x

I returned to the inn carrying a large shopping bag stuffed with my new clothes. Wanting the privacy of a room so I could change out of my wet things I went straight to the desk.

"Excuse me, could you tell me-" before I could ask the attendant if the others had checked in yet, I heard a sharp female voice from the back of the inn.

"You...! Sir, it's the criminal from the wanted poster!" Ahh, I knew exactly what was going on now.

"-umm I think my friends are here already..." I finished lamely. "A black haired man, a pink haired girl, and two kids." _Rita would definitely hit me if she heard me now..._ "Should be talking with those knights."

"Er, yes..." the man tore his eyes away from the door the shout had come from (there weren't any other loud noises from back there, thank goodness) to return his attention to me. "They've already rented two rooms, separate from the knights." He handed over a key, "This is for the room the young ladies are staying in. Though right now they're all talking in one of the knight's rooms..."

I nodded and went to get back in on the story. _I should really stop thinking of it as a story...but nearly everything is the same so far_.

I pushed the door open just in time to hear Flynn promising Sodia, "-him to the capital and explain the situation. And he will receive his due punishment." Sodia reluctantly lowered the sword she'd been pointing at Yuri, then returned it to its sheath on her belt.

"My... my mistake, Sir." she apologized. Then she was all brisk and down to business again, "Witcher, let's have your report." You know, it's like she has a much shorter version of my hairstyle. The braid is even in the same place, and notably longer than the rest of her hair...

"Did I miss something here?" I asked in an aside to Karol.

"Yeah," he whispered back, "that guy over there is Yuri's friend." I knew that. "But he's mad about all the stuff Yuri did and says he's gonna have to punish him!" Knew that too. But I nodded as if it were all news to me and gave him a pat on the shoulder (last minute cover up for the urge to ruffle his hair again).

Witcher had been running through his explanation of how blastia was being used to screw up weather conditions, and heavily implying Magistrate Ragou was the one doing it. Which led to talk about Ragou's hobby of overtaxing people and making desperate citizens try to hunt the monster Ryhbgaro.

Cue the realization that this was related to the hurt couple we'd met who'd had their child taken away.

Yuri excused us from the knights' business and our group left the room.

I waited in the hall for Rita and a deep in thought princess, "Hey Estelle, Rita, the three of us are sharing a room, right?" Estelle blinked and visibly shook herself out of her thoughts.

"Yes, we thought you wouldn't mind, but...did you want your own room?"

I shook my head at the pink haired girl. "Nah, I just wanted to ask if I could have the room to myself for a few minutes." I held up my shopping bag by way of explanation. That was a mistake.

"Oh, Letha, I didn't realize you'd left to get new clothes. If you'd told me I would have gone with you!" She actually started pulling me towards our room. "I can't wait to see what you got."

"Uh, wait, I don't need help..."

"I've never seen anyone dressed like you back in the castle."

"You know, I've been wondering about that too." Rita had actually joined the conversation, a very odd thing since talk about girls clothes seemed too...girly for her. "I can't remember ever seeing any material like this before, and certainly not the style." _Oh crap, she's analyzing my fashion. That's both really weird and so going to get me in trouble_.

"Uhh, imported stuff. By a designer with weird tastes. Uncle gave it to me as a birthday present."

"Didn't you say your uncle wanted you to be more feminine? Kind of weird for him to buy you something like this." _You wear mismatched stockings, how would you know what's weird fashion and what isn't!_

"Well, I wouldn't have worn anything else he got me, and would you both _please let me change alone!_" Rita left the room of her own will after that, but I had to practically shove the princess out the door. "God, I bet Estelle's gonna start pestering me to wear dresses too..."

x x x

Estelle was disappointed in me. Somehow she'd still clung to the hope that I'd bought a dress.

I'd changed into a black shirt with loose sleeves long enough to cover most of my hands. Over it I had a mid-thigh length forest green coat. It had a hood (though I wasn't using it yet) and no sleeves, with carved wooden buttons from the collar to a few inches above my sword and dagger belts.

Black leggings were the closest thing I could find to pants sized for a girl (the only other options being skirts). But the leggings were a little too...formfitting for my tastes. To the bemusement of the shop girl I'd also selected a pair of green shorts from the boy's section which I now wore over them.

The most important pieces were the boots and the gloves. Low brown boots that I'd made the girl _prove_ wouldn't leak. And fingerless gloves of a thin, leather-like material. I wanted to cover up the tattoo, but I hoped my weapons work wouldn't suffer for that.

_I don't look like I'm from Earth now, more like an RPG... Success!_

Feeling hungry, I went to the inn's common room to see if they were still serving dinner, or if they'd at least let guests use the kitchen. The only other people I recognized there were Flynn and Sodia. When Flynn saw me, he stood and waved for me to come join them at their table.

"You were with Yuri before, right? I am Flynn Scifo. This is Lieutenant Sodia." Flynn held out his hand and I shook it. Sodia only gave me a curt nod. _ ...You're name always made me think of Sodium Chloride. So, ha! How 'bout that, Miss Salt?_

"Letha Vitae, very pleased to meet you." He nodded as if he'd confirmed something.

"Yes, Lady Estellise told me about you as well. I heard you met her and Yuri in the Shaikos Ruins."

"Uh, that's right. From what I gather, we just missed you. Estelle was really worried about you the whole time I've been with them." My tone was accusing, just short of sticking a wagging finger in his face, and Sodia began to frown a little.

"I am sorry for causing her concern, but I'm also glad that she found friends that care for her enough to scold me." I coughed a little and looked away.

"Well, alright then. Not like I was blaming you, it was just..." I trailed off, not knowing what I meant to say. Sitting at a table with Flynn felt surprisingly uncomfortable, especially with the Fangirl there. It helped a little when a waitress brought over three plates of food.

"What do you plan to do now?" _Oh, now even _Flynn_ is asking questions...did Yuri talk with him about me or something? Or do all these justice-loving types think I'm suspicious on their own?_ Dinner seemed to be some type of beef with potatoes. Reminded me of the pot roast Dad made. I'm not fond of red meat, but I was hungry.

"How do you mean?"

"Lady Estelle has fulfilled her goal for leaving the castle, and Yuri..." he hesitated, and I noticed he'd put a disturbingly large amount of pepper on his food...

"It's okay, I get you now. You're asking if I'm going to leave on my own, or with Estelle," Flynn nodded slightly, "or with Yuri when he goes after that blastia thief." Seeing the stunned look that last part got me I smiled. "You're going to punish him, right? But you want to let him go, at least long enough to let him do what he needs to."

"What makes you say that?" It was pretty great not being the one forced to stall with that question for once.

I shrugged and speared a piece of potato with my fork. "I'm getting that vibe from you." Chewed the potato, and swallowed before continuing. "I remember reading in a book once, 'the law is not meant to be a rigid and unbending, but should be flexible and able to adapt with the times.' You seem like the type who would adapt laws to new ideas rather than let old ones continue once they were no longer just." Actually I took the liberty of adjusting the real quote, I couldn't remember who said it but it was about the US Constitution being elastic as opposed to a straight jacket. I got an "A" on that essay.

"Yuri doesn't mean any injustice, and while good intentions don't make a man innocent, they should be kept in mind when judging him." Even Alexei...he had once been a man with good intentions, and I couldn't hate him the way I knew everyone else would once his true colors were revealed. I felt sorry for him...

Sodia was glaring at me. Maybe because of the way I presumed to know her superior officer so well when I'd only just met him. Or maybe because it sounded like I was saying the law the knights upheld wasn't just anymore. I shrugged again, and told her, "That's just what I think though. I never had much of a head for politics and law. Instead I'd rather decide what's right and wrong in a situation when I'm dealing with it."

"Laws should adapt..." Flynn repeated to himself. _Woah, did that really leave an impact on him?_ "But the law is necessary to maintain the peace. If we aren't firm and punish those who break the law, then worse crimes will be committed by criminals who believe the law isn't strong enough to stop them."

"Mmm, true..." _How did I get to talking philosophy with Flynn and Sodia?_ "I haven't actually answered your first question yet, have I? About what I plan to do?"

He laughed a little, "Yes, I'd nearly forgotten I'd asked."

"Well, my answer is I want to help Yuri. If he'll let me come." At his doubtful expression I added, "Assuming, of course, that my hunch is right and you let him go for now. Though I suppose even if you lock him up I can try to find the thief on my own. I'd probably have less luck though." Well, I knew where we would eventually find the blastia, but there was no way I could get it back from Barbos without Yuri. And I wanted into that crazy tower for a look around.

Sodia couldn't keep it in any longer. "How can you condone that-that criminal?"

"Even good people do bad things, and make the wrong choices sometimes. Human nature is to err, and to learn from our mistakes. You shouldn't judge a man only for one action he's ever done. Though it sounds like it might be a bit more than one in Yuri's case..."

Feeling I'd had enough, I placed my silverware on my plate and stood up. "I'll hope you'll excuse me. It was good talking with you both, but I need to go to sleep early tonight."

"Yes, it was interesting to hear your views on the matter." Flynn was polite, but Sodia was quietly fuming in her seat.

I returned to my room, hoping that if I went to sleep right away I'd wake up before everyone else. I had a meeting in the morning.

x x x

Waking up early is not easy for me. As a result, I was restless all night long trying not to fall too deep asleep. Being so poorly rested and having to stand in the rain waiting for someone was a poor way to start a busy day.

I was standing on the bridge, watching the river flow by. If that weirdo didn't have anything worthwhile to tell me, I was gonna push him over into the water... When he did show up he already looked like a drowned rat, so that prospect sadly became less satisfying to fantasize about.

"I'm terribly sorry for calling you out with such weather, Miss Letha, but this really can't wait."

His words made me bite back the irritated words I'd had ready and I could only stare at him. "How did you know my name?"

"Oh, Sophia used to tell me about you when she was still alive, she was very proud of her adorable niece."

_Lies lies lies LIES!_ Sophia didn't have a niece to talk about before she'd died! This man had somehow found my name (oh, God, was he stalking me?) and was using that to try and trick me!

_Or,_ chimed in an insidious part of my mind, _Ludwig is the one who lied to you. You only have his word that he and Sophia had no other family. Perhaps they really did have a niece, and he named you after her. Just a possibility..._

Ugh, for once I hated the "writer's sense" I'd been cultivating by trying to predict the outcomes of books. But really, there wasn't a reason for Ludwig to tell his whole life story to a strange girl who'd shown up out of nowhere. And if it _was_ true and he hadn't told me, that didn't have any terrible meanings, right?

_And just because it's possible isn't proof. This man here could just be lying._ I'd believe that for now. I knew and trusted Ludwig, but this man was a stranger...

"Is something wrong?"

I shook my head and kicked my thoughts back into the present. "Ah, no, I was just thinking about how I didn't have much time to know Aunt Sophia."

The red head nodded, "Yes, it was very tragic." He fiddled with his glasses a bit. "I'm sorry, I just realized you must be surprised that I know you when I haven't even told you my name. I am Alastor Todhunter." I shook the hand he offered, for forms sake.

"Well, Mr. Todhunter-"

"Please, Alastor is fine."

"-Alastor, what was that about my aunt's research being stolen?"

"Ah, yes, well the thing is, Sophia once discovered a book in Aspio's library that she believed referenced the location of a yet undiscovered ancient ruin. The book seems to have been lost in a fire however." He took his glasses off to clean them before continuing. "I met her when I was a boy, and she told me she'd found the location after months of searching. But the notes she'd taken of her initial exploration were stolen soon after and she died before finding the ruins again."

"So why bring it up now?" I sneezed. When would he get to the point?

"Because now I've recently confirmed that the notes are in the Magistrate's mansion. He may not have been responsible for the theft, but they are in his possession now. Sophia's notes on the city of the winged people."

_Ahhh, snap. Winged people? Really?_ "Winged people? What do you mean?"

"From what Sophia told me, it was a city that worshiped beautiful winged beings hundreds of years ago. The tapestries and murals she told me about depicted them as being like humans with colorful wings of light."

...Okay, there were a few things that could be about. First, it was a city that worshiped Entelexeia in a convincing human shape. Second, Terca Lumireis actually had religions that believed in Angels. Third, and maybe on a related note, this was some weird crossover with Tales of Symphonia and those were Cruxis Angels. Or...

The last possibility was that the people of Sophia's city had worshiped Fairies.

"So what do you want me to do about it? It's not like I can ask Ragou to hand them over. For him to even consider giving the research notes back, I'd have to offer him more money than I've seen in my life."

"I'm aware of the futility of bargaining for the notes. That's why I was going to suggest that Sophia's niece..."reclaim" them on her own."

I stared at Alastor. And stared some more. "You want me to go in and steal them? Why me?"

"I am hardly suitable for the task, and I do not trust any hired help to return the notes if they realize how much they are truly worth." Then he gestured at me. "But you are her own family. Who would have more right to the research than you? Even if you choose not to let me see the notes, I will be satisfied that they have been returned to their rightful place rather than left to molder in the possession of one who does not understand their value." Alastor bowed, "I wish you luck, Miss Letha," and started walking away across the bridge.

Just like the day before, I was left staring after him before I could even think of what to say.

"Aw, crap, I can't ignore the possibility that this is related to fairies..."

So I started making plans to break into Ragou's mansion.

x x x

Holy cripes, it's harder to write Flynn than to write Yuri! (That does not sound right)

Letha is deep sometimes. It might seem like the talk about law with Flynn was random, but I have a reason why...

Apparently Todhunter is an Old English name that means fox-hunter. Random name generator ftw.


	11. Chapter 11: Down in the Pits

Chapter 11: Down in the Pits

x x x

The group breaks into Ragou's mansion eventually, but I doubted I'd find research notes being kept in the basement with the monsters. We'd also be a bit busy so I wouldn't feel right asking the group to take a detour just on Alastor's word. So I decided to go in by myself a bit early. It might actually be even easier for me without being part of a large, noticeable group.

I found a place by the wall where the guards couldn't see me and tried to brainstorm some options. Distracting the guards...I didn't think I could do that by myself, and didn't know who to ask for help. Other than Nevi, and he'd probably get all huffy at me and leave without helping. Climb over the wall? How? I'd done a bit of rock climbing before, but climbing a wall with plastic hand holds and a relatively easy mountain path were entirely different matters from climbing a sheer wall.

_...I wonder if..._ I pulled one of my daggers from its belt and tested the point against the wall. Other than scraping away a few grains, it didn't do much. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the dagger in my hand and thrust it forward while trying to force my energy through the blade again. Green light lined the edge and it bit more deeply into the stone, leaving about an inch left before the hilt. _Huh...I figure that's how strike arts work. Using the stuff you keep hearing about for ki or chi or Aikido breathing techniques works for channeling aer..._

Pulling the dagger free from the stone again, I considered the wall as a whole. _Even if these can support my weight, I don't think I have the upper body strength to make it all the way up._ If I had a crap load of daggers, I could make a trail of hand and foot holds, but... I looked around again, and noticed the lamp posts were awfully close to the wall.

I sighed. Might as well try.

x x x

I bought some rope from a nearby store (and was pretty broke after that, I'd have to find a way to earn more money) and tossed it over the point where the light fixtures made an L curve. With one end tied around the front of my belt, I kept tightening the other end around the handles of my daggers as I climbed. I also kept my back pressed against the lamp's pole, bracing my legs against the wall to give my arms a rest at times.

I still fell down several times, but I eventually made it to the top of the wall. Tying the rope to the lamp post, I rappelled down the other side. _Hooray~ Letha has achieved the title of "Apprentice Thief!" Or would it be "Bumbling Thief?"_

Feeling dizzy and weak afterward, I sat down for a breather. _Shit, can't breathe again..._ Eventually the small episode passed and it occurred to me to eat an orange gel. _They look a bit like cough drops, but eating them reminds me of gummie bears and starbursts...with a liquidy center._ Though it didn't do much for the slight ache in my chest, I didn't feel as tired anymore.

Circling around to the back of the mansion I found the elevators Raven and the group use to get inside. "Umm, Raven used-_will_ use- this one to go up..." I climbed into the one on the left and pulled a lever to start it up. Inside Ragou's mansion was pretty depressing. The rooms were full of fancy art and furniture that was well kept, but whenever a servant went by (I hid, lots of hiding places with all the stuff around) he or she always looked underfed and would jump at shadows. Understandable, given the monsters in the basement. They probably lived in terror of something escaping into the upper floors, or of angering Ragou and being thrown down there.

The rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon was spent looking through the rooms. I'd thought a study would be a good place to start, but even after flipping through shelves of books and files I couldn't find it. _Was Alastor lying after all? But then what would the point of sending me in here be?_ Deciding not to give up quite yet, I tried looking in other rooms full of what looked like collected antiques and artifacts that Ragou probably never even thought about.

It was starting to get dark when I'd nearly given up. The late hour worried me, but there hadn't been any big ruckus or knights running around. So I figured the others hadn't tried to break into the house yet to give Flynn an excuse to investigate. Maybe they were still hunting the Ryhbgaro? Or planned to tackle Ragou's mansion in the morning?

While thinking, I was trying to push an armful of curios back into a cupboard, and getting frustrated when they wouldn't go all the way back in. Leaving the stuff to the side, I stuck my arm in and felt around for whatever was getting in the way. Feeling something flat and smooth, I pulled it out. In my hands was a white wooden case stenciled with flowers. On the lid was engraved _Sophia V._

It was held shut with a small lock. Using my daggers to try and break the lock or pry it open was useless, the wood must have warped over the years so it was stuck. For a case of research notes on exploring a lost city, it seemed rather...thin. _Eh, well, if this isn't her notes then I won't find them. I'll bring it back with me and figure out how to get it open later_.

I tucked the thin case under my coat at my back (the way my dad likes to carry paper back books tucked into his belt) and picked up my own bag again. Why didn't I put the case in my bag? Paranoia. If I was caught then Ragou's people would check my bag. Other than the things from Earth in the hidden pocket, it didn't have anything but supplies any traveler would carry. The case would stand out too much.

Carefully I left the same way I'd come in, and looked along the wall for the rope I'd left in place. Halfway through climbing up again a hand grabbed at my leg, surprising a yelp out of me. I looked back down and saw one of the hired Blood Alliance thugs gripping my boot. "Ah, shit..." He wasn't alone either, and his friend already had his sword out.

I kicked at him, trying to break his grip so I might still escape over the wall. The thug laughed, "Don't bother, we've got more men on the other side of the wall waiting for you. Just come along quietly if you don't want to get hurt, little rat!" _Next time, take the rope down instead of assuming you can use it to get back out..._

x x x

They took my bag and weapons but didn't find Sophia's case. Though that was a small measure of satisfaction when I was thrown into Ragou's basement without any means of defending myself. _Well, could be worse...they could have decided to "play" with me first. Maybe they'd been ordered to leave women alone in that respect? ...Don't question a stroke of luck too much._

It was dark, and it was rank, and it was frightening. There were lights on the walls, but they were probably there because Ragou wanted his victims to see their death coming for them. _Victims...right isn't that boy-Pauly, right?-down here somewhere? Maybe I should try to look for him_. Walking slowly to make less noise, I began searching for the boy.

The bones and partially eaten bodies were horrifying to see, but after the initial shock (during which I jumped, collapsed into a heap, then spent maybe ten minutes with my face buried in my arms til I didn't feel like I'd throw up) I could stand them. As long as they didn't stand up and chase me. _Hate_ zombie movies...

I'm not sure how long I'd been down there when I heard the growling of monsters in a nearby room. I swallowed, what could I do if I was attacked? Looking around, I couldn't find any weapons lying around. Ragou wasn't one for giving people a sporting chance... All I could see were dead bodies.

_..._

"Daaamn, I don't wanna!" I whined as I picked around in a pile of bones. In a moment I had selected two fairly long and straight ones with sharp points where they'd been broken. I did _not_ linger on their shapes long enough to identify what parts of the body they went to.

Looking around the doorway carefully, I checked to see if any of the monsters were waiting right on the other side for me. Wolf like monsters were prowling around, but they didn't seem too interested in finding new prey. Actually it looked like they had some old prey they were still working on... _Pleeease don't be Pauly_.

They looked up at me, and some growled softly, but didn't make any move towards me as I edged along the side of the room to the next door. When I'd left that room behind, I finally let out my breath and sighed in relief. _A long night ahead for me_.

Maybe for an hour or so I wandered around. When I heard sniffling, I perked up. "Hey! Is someone there? Is that Pauly?" I called softly. The sniffling stopped. "Come on, don't be afraid. I'm here to help!" There was the sound of shuffling footsteps, then a little head with a top knot of reddish hair poked around a corner. _Oh, thank God_. "Hey, see? I'm not one of those scary men or a monster, am I?" I knelt down to put myself on his level and look less threatening.

He sniffed again, "Where's Mama and Papa?"

I held out my arms to him (I'd left the bones to the side for the moment, but within easy reach). He hesitantly came over and let me wrap my arms around him. "They'll come get you soon. I'll stay with you until then, 'kay?" He nodded, burying his tear streaked face in my shoulder. The feeling made me think of my younger cousins back home, and how some of them used to always hug me when they visited. _Dammit, Ragou, this kid is even younger than they are! I am _soo_ gonna pummel you before Yuri even gets a chance to play vigilante!_

I settled down with my back against a wall and Pauly curled up in my lap, and waited.

x x x

I jolted awake and looked around in a panic. _Damn, how long was I out?_ Pauly shifted in my arms, where I had wrapped him in my sleeveless coat. The boy sniffled a bit in his sleep, I rubbed his back to try and reassure him. He settled, and I sat still and quiet while I tried to figure out what had woken me up.

Outside the room I could hear the clicking sound of claws on the stone floor. Apparently the wolves had gotten hungry again, and wanted fresh meat. _How did the game designers expect us to believe Pauly had been safe in a dungeon full of monsters wandering around? The only reason he's still alive now is there was probably someone else they caught first!_ I gently lifted Pauly from my lap and set him against the wall before standing up with my makeshift bone weapons in hand.

"Miss?"* Ah, he'd woken up a bit anyway.

"It's okay, Pauly, I'm not going anywhere. Just stay quiet, and don't watch."

The monsters came in. Three were stalking towards me, though two of them stopped part way to watch the third. _Toying with me, maybe hoping I'll try to run_. I settled into a fighting stance. The one charged, and I didn't dodge for fear that I'd leave Pauly open. Instead I slashed at the wolf monster and forced it to jump back.

Growling at me, it circled just outside my reach before lunging at me again. I slashed again, and also tried to stab it with the other bone as it jumped to the side. The bone grazed it but no more.

When the second attacked I wasn't expecting it, it tried to get past me to the weaker prey. Since it knew I had been caught by surprise it let it's guard down. With a surge of terror and anger, I struck out with the bone in my right hand and buried it in the monster's eye. It howled in pain, and the other two began snarling angrily at me.

"How'd ya like that! Buzz off or I'll get the rest of you mutts too!" The three actually did back off a bit, but they didn't leave. Instead the lot of them sat and waited just beyond my reach, watching me. "Damn, gonna wait for me to get tired and leave an opening? Well, we'll see who can wait longer..."

I was in for a long night indeed.

x x x

Over the night I'd managed to kill one and heavily wound another. The one with a blinded eye was especially cautious of me and hadn't gotten close enough for me to do more than whack its nose once or twice. But more wolves showed up to replace the one I'd killed, so now there were five total. Occasionally they snapped at each other, and I imagined they were arguing over which one would have the privilege of killing the pesky female.

One of the new ones brashly charged me, and I unthinkingly threw up an arm to guard. It sank it's teeth into my right forearm, and tried to crush the bone in its jaws. _SHIIIT,_ I screamed wordlessly and slashed at its neck like I had done to one of the dog monsters on Ehmead Hill, and fortunately it died before breaking my arm.

I pulled away from the body, hissing in pain and trying to hold my mangled right arm in close to my body. The sight of my bloody arm had Pauly crying again, and the wolves milled around excitedly. _They're all gonna rush me at once now. I'm tired and I'm hurt_.

"Pauly," I hissed through clenched teeth. "When I tell you to go, run. I'll keep them busy, and maybe they won't follow you."

"But-"

"Just trust me, 'kay?" The wolves all leaped towards me. "Run!"

I can't say exactly what happened in the few minutes, or maybe it was just seconds. I managed to stab them a few times with the sharp bones, maybe I even got lucky and killed one. But I do know the bones both broke at some point and I was buried under the onslaught of fur and bad breath.

"_Fireball!_" Hmm? Was Pauly secretly a black mage?

The wolves were blasted off of me in a burst of light, and I saw Yuri and Estelle rushing towards them while they were still stunned, Karol not exactly close behind but following while lugging his huge ax.

I sighed, and dropped my head back down on the stone floor. "Ahh, love the cavalry..." Small hands grabbed at my shoulder and started shaking me. Opening my eyes just a crack, I turned my head and saw Pauly's frightened face a few inches from mine. "I'm alright. And hey! It looks like your Mom and Dad sent someone to pick you up." He smiled.

"Letha! Are you hurt?" Estelle had left the fight when she saw me still lying on the floor.

"Oh just peachy, I think I'll try wrestling a bear next." I said sarcastically. "Though at least the only broken bones weren't mine. There's plenty of spares lying around, did you notice?" Ignoring my rambling, she began casting First Aid. I sighed, "Thanks...I _really_ wish I knew something like that. Ragou's bastards took away my weapons and my bag, so I don't even have any gels."

Estelle patted me on my newly healed arm. "Don't worry, we'll try to find yours again." Nodding in appreciation, I let her help me sit up again. The others were talking to Pauly, trying to find out who his parents were. Of course they soon realized he was the child of the couple they'd run into at the gate.

Seeing I was doing better, the group all turned to me. "Just what the hell were you thinking?" Rita yelled. "You were already gone when Estellise and I woke up yesterday, and we were worried sick when you never came back last night!"

"Why didn't you tell us you were coming here? What the hell did you think you could do on your own?" Yuri's voice was lower and steadier than Rita's but the anger was unmistakable.

I winced, "I wasn't planning on coming here when I left...yesterday?" That felt so long ago, and at the same time like it wasn't nearly long enough. "When we got here I met someone who apparently knew my aunt. Yesterday morning I was supposed to meet him, and he told me he had a clue about...something I've been looking into. One thing led to another, and I eventually got thrown in here."

"That's so reckless! Couldn't you have at least told us you were going out or-" Karol was cut off by Pauly running in front of me.

"Stop being mean! The scary lady was nice to me, and made those monsters leave me alone!" _...Scary lady? Geez, that's sooo sweet..._ Though I guess I probably had seemed kind of frightening, standing over the bodies of dead wolves and screaming insults in the faces of monsters all night.

"...Alright, we'll leave it at that for now," Yuri conceded, though he sounded like he wouldn't be forgetting the issue anytime soon.

"Uh huh, so moving on, what are _you _guys doing down in this hell hole?"

"Flynn and his Knights need to search Ragou's mansion for proof that he's using blastia to control the weather."

"We're here to find some evidence and then kick up a fuss so the knights have an excuse to come in." I nodded at Karol and Yuri's explanations.

"Hmm, well I've already looked through the most of the house and didn't see anything like that, so the blastia must be somewhere down here in the lower levels..."

"Why were you-" Karol tried to question but was cut off again, by Yuri this time.

"Never mind that for now, let's just keep moving."

x x x

_**Name Calling**_

_Letha: Soo tired...wanna sleep..._

_Karol: Hey, are you okay?_

_Letha: Huh? A giant brown rooster is talking to me..._

_Karol: What? I'm not a rooster!_

_Letha: Oh, it's Carol...funny, why does Carol have a girl's name?_

_Karol: What's wrong with my name!_

_Letha: Heheheh, course his name isn't as funny as Yuri's..._

_Karol: Huh?_

_Letha: Yuri is actually a Russian farmer!_

_Karol: What? Why is he a "rushing farmer?"_

_Letha: Yuri comes from GEORGE! It means FARMER!_

_Karol: Wake up already!_

x x x

Pauly and was kept in the middle of the group where it was easiest to protect him from attacking monsters. Everyone took a look at my bloodied clothes and how I was struggling to even stay awake, and pushed me in the center with him. I didn't protest. Not like I had a weapon, and I wasn't keen on hunting up anymore bones to stab things with. They wouldn't have been much use against those gigantic armored boar things anyway. Or would it be more accurate to describe them as rhinos...or armadillos? _So _glad one of those things didn't attack during the night.

Estelle hovered near Pauly and me, occasionally casting First Aid on me and comforting the boy. I was too tired to deal with anything, and as much as I like kids I prefer to have limited contact with them. Moving with the group like a sleepwalker, it took me a while to notice when we stopped, and then only because I idly noticed the lack of forward momentum.

_Hmm, a room divided by bars...hey isn't this where Ragou makes his first appearance in the game?_ That woke me up again.

He was waiting for us, and took a few steps forward to see us better while he gloated. "Well, well, what do we have here? More delicious snacks for my pet, it seems."

"So you're Ragou?" The swordsman eyed the unimpressive old man in robes with a ridiculous high collar in front of us. "You've got some pretty disgusting hobbies."

"Hobbies? Oh, you must mean my basement," the magistrate said with a patronizing tone. I bristled, and felt a rising wave of _So fucking pissed off_. "Only someone with my refined sensibilities could understand the pleasure I derive from such things. You're just like those senile old fools on the council." _Looked in a mirror lately old man!_ "They bored me to death and never let me enjoy myself.

"It's the privilege of my exalted station to dispel such boredom with the...help of the common people," he concluded, his words dripping with his sense of self-importance.

"'Pleasure'?" I hissed, pushing past Yuri and grabbing the bars. "'Enjoy yourself?' Oh yes, sooo much pleasure. I had the time of my life!" I was perfectly aware of how I looked: bloody (mine and the monsters), hair tangled in medusa like locks, and both eyes and mouth wide with a freakish smile. "Why don't you come in here and see how much fun it is?" I topped it off with a slightly manic laugh. Not as good as Zagi's but creepy enough.

Yuri put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back a bit. "Don't let him get to you, it's what he wants."

Ragou had recoiled from me and my filthy appearance, but then he sneered at me, "Pathetic worm." Oh, more pissed off waves! Would Yuri hurry up and break the bars already?

"You can't mean that's your only reason to do those things." Estelle naively tried to reason with him.

But he ignored her. "Well, I suppose I should go and fetch Rhybgaro. So many new toys... He ought to put on quite a show. Though you may not live long enough to see it..."

"There's no point in searching for Rhybgaro," Yuri informed him confidently. "We've already taken care of him."

"...What did you say?" Ragou pushed his spectacles back into place as he stared at Yuri intently.

"Are you deaf? I said we've already taken care of him."

"You... What have you done to my pet?" Ragou fisted his hands, and to me looked for all the world like a little boy about to throw a tantrum over a broken toy.

"If you'd put a bell on it or something, maybe you wouldn't have lost track of it." Ouch...

Apparently realizing Yuri was poking fun at him, Ragou tried to recover his position. "Ah well, with a bit more money I'll soon be able to replace him."

This time Estelle cut in front of Yuri to admonish the corrupt magistrate. "Ragou! How can you say such things and still call yourself a servant of the empire?"

He drew back, looking as if she'd just slapped him in the face. _Wish I could slap him once._ "What? ...You... But that's impossible!" _Sorry, Ragou, your princess isn't in the castle you thought she was in_.

Before he could recover his poise a second time, Yuri flipped his sword in his hand and struck the bars with an Azure Edge attack. The wave of energy also threw Ragou across the room. "S-stay back! W-what do you intend to do?" He shrilled at us, pointing an imperious finger. "Someone! Arrest these intruders!" He scrambled to his feet and ran out the door.

"We'll have enemies all over the place if we-hey, wait, Letha!" I interrupted Yuri's speech about hurrying up by running past him (he'd let go of me earlier to use his sword, and no one else had thought to hold me back) to chase after Ragou. I didn't care that I had no weapons, I'd strangle the old bastard to death with my _braid _if I had to!

x x x

_Thinkbabynames. com_

_The boy's name __**Yuri**__ \yu-ri\ is pronounced YER-ee. It is of Russian origin. Variant of George (latin) "farmer."_

...I couldn't resist. After all, everybody expects a joke about Yuri's name being about girlxgirl themes.

Letha: *reading from a paper* "I meant no offense to any nationalities and/or ethnicities mentioned in the above joke. Or farmers." Was that necessary?

Sylph: Just covering our bases.

Letha: Then why don't you do disclaimers?

Sylph: ...snap, I forgot. But this is a fan fiction site, so people should automatically know it's not mine.

* Urgh, it feels weird to have Pauly saying "Miss." Wish I could use the Japanese "nee-san" here instead, but that wouldn't work since I haven't been using any other Japanese honorifics.


	12. Chapter 12: Scary People

Rhino600:

Thank you for your review! It's great to hear that people like both my original characters as well as my portrayal of the game characters! Writing fitting reactions and responses for characters I didn't create is a challenge, and I'm relieved that I seem to be doing something right. I hope to explore both the stories and characters in more depth as I get further into this project.

AccessBlade:

Figured I should thank you again since you review every chapter. And then have long chats with me via email. I always look forward to hearing your reactions! ^_^ Especially for this chapter...which is up so early mostly because of you.

x x x

Chapter 12: Scary People

x x x

Oddly, while chasing Ragou, my mind began chanting this weird singsong ditty my Dad used to say when chasing my brothers and me around in the pool.

_Oh, the Slithery Dee_

_It came from the sea_

_It caught all the others_

_But it won't catch me!_

_No it won't catch me_

_That slithery Dee_

_It caught all the others_

_But it won't catch-! *silence*_

Very weird. Thankfully, as I was using all my breath just to chase the old bastard up the stairs, I didn't start singing it out loud. I was already acting crazy enough.

I burst into the room with the weather controlling blastia and looked around wildly. A door slammed to the right, and I leaped on it. Unfortunately Ragou had already managed to lock it. When the group caught up to me I was still kicking at it and screaming curses (occasionally throwing in a few from other languages).

"-g_oddamned sunuva louse-ridden wh-"_

"Woah! Settle down!" Hearing Yuri reprimand me (and belatedly remembering there were children present), I stopped kicking and screaming to fume silently at the door. "Damn, when did you become such a loose cannon?"

I forced myself to turn away from the door and walk away from it. "Always have been, cannon just usually isn't already loaded. _Merde!_" I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. And again. And again. Seeing me apparently calming down at last and doing breathing exercises, Yuri returned to where the others were inspecting the blastia.

_Breathing in...ichi, nii, san, shi, go, roku..._ I imagined I could hear the blue belt instructor of my college Aikido club counting in Japanese.

_Breathing out...ichi, nii, san, shi...gyah! Can't breathe!_ I started gasping for air past the pressure in my chest, and quickly spun away so no one would see. _Shit, shit, shit why does this keep happening?_

"Aaah! Damn it!" Rita screamed and began flinging fireballs around the room. _Okay...pressure's going away..._

One fireball landed near where Karol had his ax in mid-swing and knocked him off his feet. "Jeez! What got into you all of a sudden?"

"We've gotta give those knights a good reason to show up, don't we?" The pain was almost entirely gone _huh, that was quicker than usual_, and I could relax again.

"Yes, but I don't know if we should..." Estelle hesitantly objected.

"Really, what a way to behave in someone else's home." The arrogant and patronizing tone made my head snap around to the door I'd been trying to beat down. "The time has come for you to earn your keep. I want all of them captured." _There_ was my favorite target of my own homicidal anger, Ragou! Too bad he was surrounded by muscled flunkies or I'd show him how much I missed him. "Whatever happens though, take care not to kill the young lady in white!" Huh, the line had altered from the game to make it obvious which "young lady" Ragou meant.

"No way! Are these guys from the Blood Alliance?" exclaimed Karol as he hefted his ax. Fights broke out as everyone engaged a Blood Alliance member, though Rita just kept throwing fireballs any which way and shouting. _Why doesn't she get yelled at for being a loose cannon? _ I back pedaled away from the fights until I realized one of the thugs was using my dao, and another had my daggers in his belt.

Narrowing my eyes, I rushed the one with the dao. He struck at me, but I dodged and used a kotegaeshi based Aikido move to transfer the weapon from his hand to mine. While he still tried to figure out how _I_ had become the armed combatant, I smashed the hilt into his face and chased after the one with my daggers.

I heard Yuri saying, "Enough, we're getting out of here!" and Rita snapping that she wasn't finished yet, or something like that. I was a bit preoccupied with trying to smash the Blood Alliance guy unconscious so I could get my daggers back.

I'd managed to iikyo the guy to the floor (surprised I managed to do that with a sword in one hand), and while I had him pinned with my knee I snatched up my daggers. Jumping up again, I saw Flynn at the door Ragou had used with several of his knights.

"Magistrate, I don't know what's happened here, but allow us to offer our assistance."

"There, see?" Yuri had an "I told you so" tone... and Ragou muttered something under his breath.

Then Judith made her window smashing entrance on Ba'ul. _ Damn, wish I could have made a grand entry like that back in the Shaikos Ruins..._ Though I was looking forward to when she ditched the armor. It reminded me a bit too much of something like the Ku Klux Klan...

"Woah...! Is th-that the dragon rider?" Karol exclaimed in fearful awe. At this point I had always thought Ba'ul looked more like some kind of dolphin on steroids... The call he made even sounded like a whale with a higher voice.

Judith and Ba'ul soared across the room, dodging the magic attack Witcher aimed at them, and smashed the blastia with Ba'ul fin and Judith's spear.

Rita shrieked in rage. "You! What the hell do you think you're doing? How dare you destroy those blastia!"

"There really is a person riding a monster..." gasped the princess.

"Wait!" Our mage's voice was sharp enough to cut glass, as she gestured frantically to cast rapidfire fireballs at Judith. Ba'ul responded by blasting some energy at the floor that caused the area around the blastia to catch fire. Incidentally this also cut off Flynn and his knights, who'd been trying to get close enough to use their swords.

"Damn. He'll get away!" And Ba'ul was back out the window, leaving with Judith in style.

"So cool..." I sighed.

"Where do you think you're going?" Yuri shouted, chasing after Ragou. _Oh, right, we're not done yet._ I joined the chase with the others.

x x x

"Yaaay! The sun!" I crowed once we got outside, then quickly slapped a hand over my eyes, "Oww, it's blinding..." Rita, however, was still fuming over how Judith got away and re-dubbed the Dragon Rider as the Dragon Freak. I listened to everyone discussing what the Dragon Rider's purpose for destroying blastia could be, impatient to be on our way but knowing I couldn't go anywhere until my eyes adjusted to the light again.

"Do you think you can go home by yourself?" _Huh? What's Yuri talking about? Oh, Pauly's still with us, I forgot..._

"You're going to go get that bad Ragou person, aren't you?"

"Yeah, we want to hurry."

"It's okay. I can go home by myself." Then I felt a small pair of arms wrap around my waist. "Thank you for helping me, scary lady!"

"Jeez, do you have to call me that?" I complained, but I patted him on the head. "Whatever, I'll be as scary as I need to be to keep monsters away from you." Pauly smiled (I think, my sight was still a bit blurry) and ran off.

Dammit, Estelle was hesitating again. While everyone said a little something along the lines of "face the facts, some people that have power are scum" I had already started for Ragou's private dock, Rita right behind me.

I pounded down the dock, sprinting like I had always hated (dammitall, there was a huge stitch in my side from running around everywhere) to try and get as close as possible to the ship. "Shit, can I really jump on that?" Well the worse that could happen would be I'd fall into the water...and maybe get crushed under the ship... "Shit!" I jumped, trying to put all the energy I had left into my legs.

There was a flash of light, it seemed to be just behind my field of vision, and I felt a small surge of strength when I made that desperate jump. _What? _I crashed against the side of the ship, my hands grabbing the railing. "Ugh! I always sucked at chin ups!" The dao and daggers belted to my hips didn't help. Slowly I managed to drag myself up and over the side. "Agh! Don't make me do that again!"

_Was that my blastia? Did I use it without thinking about it?_ Whatever, just all the more reason to be grateful to Ludwig and Sophia. Whether or not I knew their whole story.

I looked up in time to see Yuri and Repede landing on the deck, a rather shaken looking Karol tucked under the older man's arm. Rita was pulling Estelle up over the side, somehow the princess had also managed the jump.

Looking around the ship we'd landed on, I saw that the deck was loaded with various crates and chests. Rita didn't hesitate in ripping them open to see what was inside. "These are all blastia cores!"

Karol stood on his toes to look over her shoulder into a chest. "Why are there so many? And they're all just cores."

"I have no idea. We don't even have this many at the laboratory!"

"Could this be connected to the core thief?" Estelle looked to Yuri for confirmation.

"Could be," he said, stepping closer to look at the cores.

"Huh, if so many cores have been stolen, why aren't there more people making a fuss over it? They're important after all." I wondered aloud.

"Nobles don't notice the loss as much, and no one else can do anything about it," Yuri explained to me, "Especially if there's someone high up who's responsible."

"But I thought the one behind everything was a huge guy with one eye. That doesn't fit Ragou at all."

"Then he might not be the only one pulling the strings," Yuri answered the boy thoughtfully. He hopefully looked around at all the opened boxes full of shining cores. "I wonder if the core from the lower quarter is here someplace."

"Sorry, none of these are big enough," the mage told him as she finished her quick check of the last chest.

Repede started growling. _Ah, break time's over._ The crew of Blood Alliance guild members were coming out to surround us. _I hope I don't just pass out from exhaustion while fighting Barbos(sa) or Zagi. I'd probably drown once the ship sinks_.

Crap, I'd almost forgotten about that. I glanced at the others with me. _...Do they all know how to swim? Estelle's been in the castle her whole life, so it would make sense if she didn't know._

"I knew it. These guys are with the Blood Alliance. They're one of the five master guilds," Karol informed us grimly.

"They seriously look like pirates wearing armor," I observed. I was ignored. Apparently everyone was learning to overlook the random stuff I say. The "pirates" all jumped to attack us at once. Two rushed me, maybe planning to try some sort of tag team. Wanting to get things over with quick (sooo exhausted...) I dodged one and Aikido'd the other. Too bad I don't remember the name for that move. It's nice and simple: sidestep*, grab their arm, and keep them moving the way they were going. He did a dive right over the railing into the water.

I turned to his buddy and grinned. "Nice day for a swim?"

"Crazy bitch!" he spat at me.

"Woah. I've been called lots of things, but no one's ever called me a bitch before!" Seriously, never. "I think we need to wash your mouth out, young man!" (He was probably older than me...) The thug didn't look like he'd make the mistake of charging me again, however, so I pulled my daggers.

I really didn't want to have to kill someone though... Which made me wonder, were the others killing their opponents or knocking them out? I couldn't spare the time or attention to check. _Well, if you can, knock this guy out or make him swim._

For the next few minutes, I did a lot of dodging. I was really afraid of seriously hurting the guy if I attacked, so I was left to defend myself while waiting for a good opportunity to use something Aikido inspired. Unfortunately he seemed to realize I wasn't going all out and began attacking with more vigor. _Ugh, you know, maybe if I hadn't drawn my daggers I'd be having better luck finding a way to use Aikido on this guy and get him over the railing..._ Too late for that.

I hadn't been paying attention to what was going on around us (which is bad, I should try to learn to pay attention so I don't get knifed from behind one of these days) so I didn't realize we'd been getting close to where Rita was casting spells. The thug might have done this on purpose, or he might have just noticed it before I finally did and decided to capitalize on the situation as an opportunity to off the mage who was barbecuing his comrades.

He aimed a particularly nasty swing at me, which I had to jump back to avoid (_not _trying to block a sword half my size with two little daggers), then turned and raised his sword to stab Rita through the back.

"_Shit!_" I lunged forward, maybe partly intending to just grab his shoulders and pull him away, but I _was _holding daggers in my hands. The practical and realistic part of my mind automatically took over and stabbed him in the back. He made a strangled sound as the sword fell from his hands and he fell to his knees. I stared at him in horror. _WHAT THE FRICK DID I JUST DO!_ Dammit, I'd never thought I was the type who could stab someone in the back!

But my strike hadn't been well aimed, so the man managed to grab his sword again, and swung around as he stood up to face me. His face was twisted with pain and fury. I felt frozen by fear and my own internal shit fit. With a roar (flecks of blood flew out of his mouth, my practical and realistic part noted coldly) he tried to run me through with his sword.

The chances that I would have stood there and watched him do it were pretty high at that point, but Practical and Realistic side of me would have none of that. On instinct or reflex or whatever, I dodged his sword. But instead of going to the side and slightly behind him for safety and control (Aikido), I took the daring route and stepped in closer, where I was right in his face when I stabbed him again.

He fell down again, dead or dying, but either way he wouldn't be getting up again. The cold side of me settled back down since neither my team mates nor I were in anymore danger of imminent death. I don't scream when I have mental breakdowns, not audibly. Instead I go crazy inside. Nothing coherent enough to explain either.

"Letha...hey, are you okay?" I shook myself a little and came back out of my own head a bit. Karol was in front of me, looking up into my face with concern. Apparently I'd just been standing there staring at nothing for some time.

"Yeah, Ace, I'm just fine," I said, with barely a waver in my voice. It was there, but he didn't seem to notice it.

It was not the time for breakdown or hysterics, that could wait until later when I wouldn't be in danger of getting killed while agonizing over having killed someone else.

_Don't think about it._

_**Don't**__ think about it._

I kept that litany going in my head for a long time.

With the crew taken care of (I did _not_ look to see how many were dead and how many were out cold) Yuri and Karol started looking for...I dunno, anyone hiding in the cabin or overlooked chests of blastia cores? The cabin door flew open and Karol was flung across the deck with a startled yelp.

"Out of my way!" Barbos(sa) came swaggering out of the door he'd kicked open. "Hah. Was that spineless worm Ragou running from a bunch of kids?" he sneered at us. Barbos doesn't really look like Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean at all, but the name always results in that automatic connection in my mind.

"One-eyed giant... So you're the one getting people to bring you all these cores?" demanded Yuri, making his presence behind Barbos(sa) while pointing his sword at the man's back. _A dagger in a man's back..._

_Don't think about it, don't think about it, __**DON'T **__ think about it!_

I snapped out of it when Barbos(sa) spun and tried to hit Yuri with his (FUCKING HUGE) sword, and the black haired man demonstrated amazing acrobatic skill (maybe his blastia helps?) jumping out of the way and back to where we watched.

Barbos(sa) and Yuri exchanged a few semi-conversational, semi-pissed off words with each other when Ragou made his displeasure with everything in general known. "Barbos, what are you waiting for? Dispose of these brats!" _Urgh, I still wanna kill that bastard-_

_A man lying in a pool of his own blood..._

_DON'T THINK ABOUT IT, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT-_

"Next time we meet, you kids won't be getting off so easy." Oh, Barbos(sa) was leaving. Guess we didn't actually have to fight him yet.

"Wait! He's still inside...! Damn!" Ragou cursed at Barbos and followed him to the smaller boat (that kind has a name, but I couldn't remember it) for going to shore. "Zagi! We'll leave the rest to you!" Barbos cut the ropes and the boat fell into the water.

The insane assassin came out from where ever he'd been taking a nap or something. "Who is it? Who do I get to kill this time?" _Damn_ the look on his face was scary and demented. About as scary as I had been in Ragou's basement, and he wasn't even covered in blood or killing things with bones.

_Covered in blood..._ I was still covered in blood. Mine, that of the monsters, and of the Blood Alliance man...

_AGH! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!_ My knuckles were bloodless white with how tight I was clenching my fists.

Estelle and Yuri of course recognized Zagi, and looked _very_ unhappy to see him again.

The ship was rocked by some explosions below deck -_what the crap was that?-_ but Zagi hardly seemed to notice as he did some writhing dance thing while cackling, "My blade, it aches to kill... I've got to kill something!" Another demented look, and he launched himself at Yuri, who barely dodged in time. Of course, Zagi hit something else which exploded some more. I threw my hand up to try and filter the smoke with my sleeve, but couldn't cover my watering eyes for fear Zagi would gut me.

"Woah! Go easy on me this time." Yuri shook off his surprise and prepared to take on Zagi. Zagi turned back to him with yet _another_ demented look. _Is the guy tripping on something or what?_

Unlike in the game, the rest of us couldn't hope to keep up with the two fighters. They were darting and jumping all over the place, sparks flying everywhere whenever their swords clashed. Zagi kept screaming "Die for me!" and Yuri yelled at least once "What the HELL is wrong with you!"

Karol and I ran to hide behind a few crates (screw being labeled as a coward, _nobody_ would want to take on Zagi!). Rita looked like she really wanted to roast Zagi but couldn't cast a spell that wouldn't either miss or hit Yuri too. Estelle was the only one of us who could be even slightly useful, using First Aid whenever Yuri was a bit slow and got cut. Despite Rita's restraint, there were fires breaking out everywhere from the explosions.

Suddenly the boat was rocked again by more explosions, and one shock wave hit Zagi. He was put off balance and unable to block Yuri's sword, getting a deep cut up his left arm to his shoulder. He grasped at it as he stumbled back and fell to his knees, "Graaah! That hurts...!"

"You put up a good fight." The black haired swordsman conceded, able to relax a bit at last.

"...I-I retreated..." the assassin mumbled and then laughed maniacally. _I wonder if he'll give lessons...he sounds really freaky. Definitely way scarier than I was before._ "You're tough! Yes tough! You're definitely tough! I certainly won't forget that, Yuri!" The birth of the psychotic Yuri Lowell fanboy. "I'm going to kill you, Yuri! Gonna carve you into little pieces! Don't move a muscle...!" As he was laughing something exploded again, and the rocking ship threw him off into the ocean.

"Woah...Yuri, you're just all the wrong sorts of popular, aren't you?" I said, trying to hold on to the spark of my returning sense of humor to keep from freaking out again.

He made a face, "Feel free to take my place as a celebrity."

"The ship's sinking!" Karol yelled.

Quickly assessing the situation, Yuri ordered, "Everyone into the water!" Before any of us moved, there was coughing from the ship's cabin.

"Is anyone there?" Crap, during my whole mental breakdown I'd forgotten Ioder was here too. _Why the hell did he wait until now to speak up?_ Yuri ran for the cabin door, while Rita and I pulled Estelle back (she'd tried to run through the fire to help him) and practically wrestled her into jumping over the side.

Karol had already abandoned ship, and was furiously trying to keep his head above water. His oversized weapon and the bag he wore must have been weighing him down. Rita was treading water just fine, but Estelle's flower-gown dress thing absorbed a ton of water and nearly dragged her under. Being the oldest, strongest (not counting Karol who had enough problems at the moment), and having the least trouble keeping myself afloat, I struggled to help support both of us. Not easy, especially when the princess nearly panicked and dragged me under at first.

"Estelle-dear-_please_ don't cling so tight!"

_Damn, Flynn better pick us up soon, I'm tiring fast!_ Then I would have smacked myself in the face if my hands weren't already occupied. _I should have just hitched a ride with _Flynn _to cross the ocean and hook up with the others! Fuck!_

...The ocean had monsters too, right? Like those mermen or whatever?

When something started coming up from below, I actually shrieked, "It's the Slithery Dee!" and making Estelle wince and earning weird looks all around. Of course, it was just Yuri coming up with an unconscious Prince Ioder.

"Yuri! Thank goodness!" It was my turn to wince at Estelle's voice in my ear.

He coughed out some water, "Man, that's salty." His voice sounded raspy from the salt water. "I must've drank a bucket full."

"Who's that?" Rita tried to point at Ioder and nearly floundered for a moment.

"Ioder...!" the princess exclaimed, recognizing him now that she wasn't worried about Yuri.

"What, you know him?"

"Look, a boat! We're saved!" Hey, wait a minute, why was Karol's bag floating now? Dammit, how come he gets a flotation device? "Heeey! Over heeere!" _Damn...I never found my bag again back at Ragou's... Ah, shit! My stuff from Earth!_ I'd have to see if Flynn's knights could find it for me, or if Kaufmann heard about it with her connections.

Flynn's boat slowly came up alongside us, and he expressed his relief at seeing us alive. Until he saw Yuri's armful of missing noble. "Master Ioder!" Recovering from his momentary lapse of composure, he began throwing orders around to get things done. "Wait, I'll pull you out. Sodia, give me a hand!"

The knights got Ioder into the boat with Yuri's help, and then I helped boost Estelle as she climbed up. Once it was my turn to be pulled on board, I heaved a sigh and slumped against the railing. "Oh my, there goes all that adrenalin that's been keepin' me on my feet all day..." With that I promptly fell asleep.

x x x

...It was bound to happen sooner or later, and Letha won't be able to hide from that reality very long.

*I've been referring to it as sidestepping, but it's actually footwork called Ten Kan (not sure about the spelling). But it's a bit too complicated to explain at length when in the middle of a fight. Nor do I want to stick an explanation here. Someday I might write a sidestory/one shot thing of the scene where Letha was teaching Yuri some Aikido. I'll describe the moves she uses the most better there.


	13. Chapter 13: Not Really Coming Clean

Thank you to the new reviewers, XxXTwilight-SinXxX and Dreamer's Samhain!

Sylph: I'm soo happy! People are reviewing, this story is on some people's alerts or in their favorites, I have more ideas for what to do! Today/yesterday (Saturday) I got over100 hits!

Letha: At least one of us is having a good time...

x x x

Chapter 13: Not Really Coming Clean

x x x

_The sunset was spraying colors across the clouds, turning the horizon into an array of red, orange and pink over black and white water. It strongly reminded me of an oil pastel drawing. The weather had been windy all week, and it was particularly strong coming off the water. Caused by all sorts of interesting things that water does to temperature and fronts. I turned away from the water to look back at..._

_Nothing. There was only a void behind me._

_Confusion. What was supposed to be there? I tried walking forward, and my foot caught on something. When I looked down, I found the ground was covered in dead animals._

_No, not animals, monsters. And pieces of bones, broken and bloody._

_I turned away, and found myself standing with a sword in a man's chest. He gasped, and his hands clutched at the sword where it entered his chest. His blood flowed down the blade, down my hands, and down my arms. I let go and covered my face with my bloodstained hands, screaming._

x x x

I woke and jerked upright. Shivering, I looked wildly around the room. For a second, the wooden planks that made up the walls and ceiling convinced me I was back in Ludwig's cottage. Then several other things began registering. The desk with drawers stuffed too full of maps and charts to close properly bolted to the floor, the way the room rocked that was _not _a result of my body's shaking, and the blond man wearing a green overcoat lying in the room's other bed.

_Oh...I guess I'm still on Flynn's warship...and Ioder's still unconscious..._

Sighing, I buried my face into the lumpy pillow. _Thank God I don't talk in my sleep, or everyone would be pounding on the door asking why I was screaming bloody murder-_ I groaned and pushed my face deeper into the pillow.

For a long time, I tried to forget. Forget what I'd done, forget where I was, forget _who_ I was.

I tried not to think of anything.

But the tears still soaked into my hair and pillow. My ragged breathing was muffled in the bedding, so Ioder didn't even stir in his sleep.

When I finally pulled myself up again, I blinked in surprise at how much darker everything was. _I guess the sun went down_. Knowing it was pointless to try and go back to sleep just yet, I swung my legs off the bed and bounced onto the floor. Then almost fell down at the swaying motion of the ship on open water. In a moment I found my balance again and pushed out into the salty air.

Since it was dark, no one who saw me would notice that I'd been crying. I moved to the back of the boat, where I found a barrel to sit on as I watched stars appear in the darkening sky and the wake the ship left behind in the water. It was beautiful, provoking deep thoughts. I would have really enjoyed it under normal circumstances.

_I ended someone's life. A _life,_ not just killed him, everything he was and could have become is destroyed now. I had every right to protect myself, but to kill is... _I stared at Vesperia balefully. _To kill is always a tragedy._ At home I had studied Aikido precisely because the emphasis on preventing even injuries appealed to me. _Somehow I feel like I'm no longer worthy to use those techniques..._

"Hey, you're awake." I jumped a bit, nearly falling off my barrel.

"You're like a freakin' ninja, Yuri! Make more noise when you're sneaking up on someone."

"That wouldn't be any fun." I snorted as he leaned against the railing next to me. It seemed like he was waiting for me to say something.

"...Yuri," I hesitated, "You've...been fighting for a long time. And you were a knight before." For once I had trouble wrapping my mind around that.

"Yeah, so?"

"...You've killed people before?"

"...Yeah. When I had to." He was quiet for a while, but I wasn't looking at him. I just kept staring at the stars. "When you fight it's kill or be killed, there's rarely any other option. If you're not prepared for that, then you won't last long."

I nodded, "I know..."

"Then what's eating you? I saw what you did to help Rita, would you rather she was the one who got hurt?"

I shook my head. "No, I... I know I had to do it... I know someone in a guild would be fully aware that he could die in a fight... Could die fighting another person... I know lots of reasons why I should accept it and move on. My head knows it, but my heart still feels sick..." I was blinking furiously. On my own, it was one thing, but I hated to shed even a tear in front of someone else.

"I wasn't thinking about what I was doing." My voice shook, and I inwardly cursed that I couldn't cover that up. "My body moved on its own. _That's_ what terrifies me the most. That I could kill someone so easily. And that there's a part of me that could do it so coldly." I glanced at him.

Yuri was looked away, up at the stars. Maybe he was looking at Brave Vesperia too. "I can't really tell you what to do. Your problems are for you to sort out. No one else can just give you the answers you need." I nodded. It was myself that I had to make my peace with.

Then Yuri laughed a bit, "Anyway, you didn't actually look like you were enjoying it, so at least you're not as bad as that Zagi guy." That made me giggle weakly.

"If you wake up one morning and I've dyed my hair three different colors, you should probably run the other way."

That got Yuri to laugh even more, "Right, I've already got enough crazy people chasing me." _Funny how Zagi's indirectly responsible for helping me through this. I don't know what goes on in his head, but I _know_ it's not the same as in mine._

"Hey guys, she's awake!" I looked back and saw Karol sprinting in our direction, Estelle and Rita following at a more normal pace.

"You wouldn't wake up, we were worried!"

"Aah, yeah, sorry... I just haven't slept well the past few nights..." I stammered.

"Idiot, that's what you get for getting stuck in Ragou's basement! You're lucky you weren't killed!" Rita crossed her arms as she gave me a verbal thrashing.

"Oh, right, thanks for that Rita," she looked confused by the sincerity in my voice, and faltered in her angry tirade. "You used a fireball back then, right? If you'd been a second later, I really would be dead." I looked around at the rest of them. "I'm really glad you all showed up."

"Don't change the subject!" She seemed embarrassed. "Next time don't go off on your own like an idiot again." I didn't think Rita knew that I'd killed someone to protect her. Somehow I was glad for that. I didn't want it to feel like I'd done that just to get even with her.

"We can't bail you out of the trouble you keep getting into if you don't tell us anything," _Yuri sees me as a troublemaker? Well, I did fall down a hole in the Shaikos Ruins...had an attack on Ehmead Hill...and now we have the Mansion's Basement Incident to add to the list. That and this minor freak out about morals and all that._

"You were seriously injured when we found you! I was able to heal your wounds, but next time..." _Oh, no, no, please don't tell me you're about to cry, Estelle! I _hate_ to think about people crying over the dead!_

"Yeah! If you'd died then even Estelle couldn't do anything!" I have never been scolded by someone younger than me before, but Karol looked serious enough that it wasn't at all funny.

"I got it, I got it! I'm sorry for being an idiot, and I'll let you guys know where I'm going from now on!" They didn't seem quite satisfied, "Jeez, don't tell me you're gonna send someone with me every time I leave on an errand?

"Well, that would be overdoing it. Just don't go somewhere dangerous all alone again." _Umm, Yuri's being surprisingly...understanding about it? Is it because he knows my mental health is a bit 'fragile' right now?_

"That reminds me, why were you in Ragou's mansion?" Karol piped in. I had hoped they would forget to ask about that.

"That's right, you said you'd found a clue about something." At Estelle's reminder I sat straighter as if I'd just gotten an electric shock.

"Agh! I forgot!" My hands flew to the small of my back, feeling for the case with Sophia's notes. "It's gone!"

"Do you mean this?" Karol pulled the white case out of his bag and held it up to me. I grabbed it and hugged it to my chest like it held the secret of the universe (and it was something other than forty-two).

"It was found in your, um, in your clothes when you were carried to the cabin to rest," the princess explained to me.

"Thank you guys for holding on to it," I belatedly remembered to say. "If I'd lost it after all that, I think I would just jump into the water and try to sink like a rock."

"Idiot!" I winced at how many times I'd been called that. "You were risking your life for _that?_"

I looked Rita in the eyes very somberly. "Just like you'd risk your life for blastia." Her mouth snapped shut, then opened again.

"That's not the same at all!" I didn't argue the point.

"It says 'Sophia V.'" So it belonged to your aunt?" I nodded at Estelle. "No wonder it's so important to you. But you still shouldn't risk yourself like that! Your aunt wouldn't be happy if you got hurt because of her." _She never knew me, I wouldn't really have to worry about breaking her heart by dying...but...back home..._

"Yeah! You could have asked us for help!" Karol puffed his chest out impressively.

"I didn't want to get in the way of your search for the blastia thief. And anyway, I didn't want anyone to know I was looking for this..." I looked down and stroked the smooth white wood with a thumb.

"...It has something to do with what you told me about before, doesn't it?" I flinched and glared at Yuri. I'm pretty sure he got my meaning; _you promised not to tell!_ His answering look was clear enough, even I (with my pitiful amount of skill at reading unspoken messages) could understand. '_I didn't actually tell them anything, did I?_'

"Yuri, you knew about this already?" Estelle sounded a bit hurt. I couldn't decide about what exactly; over me keeping secrets from everyone but Yuri, or with Yuri for knowing and not telling the others.

"Not much, she didn't tell me everything." I'd begun fidgeting under their collective stare. "Just that she's looking for something her aunt found before." _Waah! Where's the sympathetic Yuri from a few minutes ago?_

"You mean this box?" I shook my head.

"Well spit it out already! What are you looking for?" I kept staring at my clenched hands.

"Letha...don't you trust us?" I visibly flinched. _Below the belt!_ I'd once had a teacher who told us that the worse thing you could say to a person was "I don't trust you." Somehow that was practically branded into my impressionable young mind.

"That's not it! It's-" my mouth snapped shut, so fast my teeth even clicked. I had no idea what to tell them, I hadn't expected the conversation to turn this way. Getting chewed out for doing something reckless on my own, _that_ I'd been prepared for._ And if I don't tell them, _I'll _be the one who can't be trusted_. Ironic, I'd have to lie some more to keep up whatever trust they had in me. _I'm such a terrible person._

"...When I was young, Aunt Sophia found something. She brought it home, and apparently it unexpectedly marked me." I pulled the glove off my left hand and showed them the butterfly-flower tattoo. "Before you ask, whatever I was marked by disappeared, and we couldn't find it again. Since she died, I've had no way of knowing anything else about this, and Uncle Ludwig can't tell me anything either." I glanced around, but couldn't decide if they still seemed angry at me or not. "So I'm trying to find the place she found that thing to learn more about it."

"So these notes," I held up the white case, "might have some information on that place." Not too far off from the real truth. If it was fairies being worshiped in that city, and if this wasn't a hoax Alastor had set up, then I might find out something about the weird heirloom I was looking for.

I hoped I hadn't mixed up my false facts, or else Yuri would probably notice. I was nervous enough about him hearing the story a second time. That made it twice as likely he'd notice something was off. Instead of facing us he was standing with his back turned again, the tilt of his head the only sign that he was even listening.

Rita was inspecting my hand while Estelle brought over a lantern and hovered nearby. "I don't remember seeing anything likes this in the books at the castle." _Not surprising_. "Could it be related to the Geraios Civilization?" If I remembered right, that was the civilization that had supposedly created and then buried the blastia (the ones responsible for the creation of blastia were the Krytians of the civilization).

Rita frowned at my hand as if it had insulted her and her blastia. "I don't think so. I haven't seen anything like it during my own research."

"Yeah...that's why I wanted my aunt's notes so bad. Otherwise I might never find it."

"Did you look at them yet?" Estelle seemed to be itching to read the notes herself.

"Can't get it open, I think the wood's warped. And I _don't _want to bust it open," I quickly added when I saw Rita looked ready to try and use her magic on it.

Karol took the case and examined the wood and lock. "Hey, this is a trick lid!" He handed it back to me. "Look really close and you can see it's just made to look like it opens, but it's actually just a line cut into it. It even has hinges and the lock to make it more convincing."

I held it closer to the lantern. "Wow, good eyes, Ace, I don't think I'd have noticed that... Ugh, so either that was a total waste or there's some other trick to getting this open."

"We'll help you try to figure it out!" promised Estelle brightly. I smiled.

"Thanks, but don't worry about it too much. I'm not in a real hurry." _Lie, I want to get this open as soon as possible, but I'd really prefer they didn't get too involved in this_. "When we get to the harbor, I'll see if any of the shops have any tools that could open it without damaging what's inside, and if not I'll figure out what to do then."

They were all glaring at me. I blinked and then realized, "I swear, I'm not going to go looking for trouble. I'll ask around the shops, and then I'll come back. I'll even let you guys know once I'm back safe and sound." A collective nod of satisfaction. _What the heck? Did they rehearse that or what?_

"We should al get some sleep. Flynn said we're landing in Torim harbor early tomorrow." Yuri was looking back at us over his shoulder. "Letha, we put you and Ioder in the same cabin since you both passed out," _I didn't reaally pass out, I just fell asleep at the first opportunity..._ "Sorry to ask you to share, but you should spend the night there to make sure you've recovered."

I nodded. Sharing a room with a guy didn't bother me, largely because the idea of Ioder waking up in the night and trying to molest me or something was laughable. Everyone started off in different directions for their own beds, and I returned to mine feeling relieved that they'd stopped poking at my threadbare story. If I'd turned around, though, I may or may not have seen Yuri watching me with a slight frown.

x x x

One actual good thing about the previous night's interrogation, it took my mind off the blood on my hands (though the thought still lingered in the back of my head, like storm clouds in the distance) and then both took back seat when I realized how _hungry_ I was. If I go long enough without eating, the hunger pangs go away and I forget about it. Eventually, though, they come back. It had been about a day since I had last eaten (food swiped from Ragou's kitchen before I was caught) so I was starving and only managed to beg an apple from a sympathetic knight.

Going to sleep on a nearly empty stomach gave me weird dreams. Waking me up after dreams like that leads to crazy talk.

"Miss. Miss, the knights say we've arrived in the port."

"Mrgh, nnf, cobblers..."

"Miss?"

"I wanted Italian with black olives..."

"Italian...?"

"Mmmf, wha? Yoda?" I blinked. A green blur my half functioning brain had labeled as "Yoda" was trying to tell me something...why was Yoda green in the wrong places?

"Miss, the knights say we've arrived in Torim harbor, and it's time to disembark." I blinked, and realized it was _Ioder_ talking to me. I dropped my face in my pillow.

"Ughh, I'm awake, just give me a minute..." I wake up so slowly, and even once awake need to stay in bed for a few minutes to make sure I've actually got my thoughts straight again. He hovered nearby, as if unsure whether I was really awake or not, so I sighed and sat up.

"I'm up, I'm up."

Ioder was fussed over the minute he stepped out the door of our cabin (gyah, weird mental images from saying "our cabin") and I went unnoticed as I quietly slipped away to stand by the railing.

Torim was much brighter than Nor Harbor had been. It even seemed more colorful, though the houses were mostly all earthy tones of brown or off-white. A place full of life.

_Umm, what happens here..._ I screwed my eyes shut and tried to visualize a list of events. _Umm, Ioder and Flynn drop the bomb about Estelle being a princess, as if we hadn't already figured that out. Or is that a little later? They do tell us that Ioder is a prince... Urgh...do we see Alexei? No, not yet, not til Heliord... Huh, I forget what leads us there._

I shrugged to myself. If I was having trouble remembering then it wasn't anything terrible. As long as I tried to stay close to at least one of the others, I should be fine. Speaking of which, I saw Estelle standing further down the railing looking everywhere at once with wide eyes. I walked over to stand by her.

"Pretty different from Nor Harbor, huh?"

"Yes, the people here look much more spirited and cheerful." We stood in silence for awhile, just listening to the seagulls and the sounds of the busy harbor. "Letha..."

"Mmm? What is it Estelle?" It occurred to me that the princess and I hadn't had many conversations with each other. At least she seemed to have (mostly at least) forgiven me.

"Do you like Yuri?" I choked for a minute before I realized the "Y" was _definitely _capitalized. _Definitely_ a proper name. Then I couldn't hold back my laughter. Estelle looked on in confusion.

"Oh, lord, _what_ brought that on?" I had to wipe a tear from my eye.

"Well, you seem to get along well and I've noticed you watching him sometimes during battles." She leaned in closer and looked me straight in the eyes. "And sometimes the two of you go off and talk alone together. Like last night!" I couldn't help it, I started laughing again at the serious look on her face and had to sit down on the deck while clutching my sides. "Why are you laughing?"

"I can't help it!" I took deep breaths to calm down. "Oh, Go-gosh, I'm glad he wasn't here to hear all that." When I didn't think I'd burst out in laughter again, I looked back up at Estelle. "No, I don't like Yuri that way. I definitely think he's an attractive looking man," admitting that out loud was embarrassing, "but I'm not really interested in him that way.

"I've been watching him only because he uses a sword, and I was hoping I could learn something. I've been watching you fight too, you just apparently didn't notice. I'm not so crazy about a style that uses a shield though." I stood up again. "As for talking alone together, like he said last night, that was about my...family issues."

"Oh! I'm so sorry for jumping to conclusions like that! So that's all it was..." To me it seemed like Estelle couldn't decide whether she should be happy or disappointed. She might have developed a small crush on the swordsman by now, but she also liked playing matchmaker if her interest in Karol's situation with Nan was anything to go by.

"Hmm? Are you _jeaalouus?_" I said slyly.

Her cheeks blushed nearly as pink as her hair, "Wh-what? No! No, not at all!" She waved her hands in denial. Or innocent embarrassment. Since she was a princess and all, she probably wasn't used to people teasing her about such personal matters.

"Oh, well, that's boring," I pouted, inwardly laughing at how much I probably sounded like Judith. Then I smiled and laughed out loud again, just because it felt good.

The younger girl pouted at me, "You're teasing me again, aren't you?"

"Yup. Fair's fair. You ask about my love life, I tease you about yours." The color in her face deepened again. "Here, to make it up to you, if I ever meet anyone I _do _have a crush on, I'll tell you first." She held her pouting expression a bit longer, then laughed with me.

"Hey guys! It's time to leave the ship!"

"Coming Ace!"

x x x

Once on shore, Ioder politely thanked the group as a whole for rescuing him. He wasn't giving me any odd looks, so I hoped he hadn't been too weirded out by my half asleep mumbling. I'd been remembering a weird conversation I'd once had with my room mate...who'd been craving Subway.

Rita tried again to get Estelle to tell us who Ioder is, but Flynn smoothly cut in. "I've made arrangements at the inn. We can discuss things further there." He looked at Yuri expectantly. "You'll come, won't you?" Yuri gave a fraction of a nod, a trifle annoyed at the order disguised as a request. Probably only Flynn could get away with that. The two blonds nodded politely to us as they went their way.

We wandered slowly through the streets, the whole group making small talk and joking with each other while Karol and Estelle stopped frequently to look in shop windows. Estelle saw a dress in one shop that she insisted would "look so cute!" on me, and I had to fight another battle in the name of wearing pants.

Thankfully everyone else was hungry too, so I didn't have to feel embarrassed about asking to stop somewhere for a bite. We bought breakfast from a port side cafe (Estelle paid for mine since I had lost all my stuff, so nice of her!) and ate quickly since we figured it would be bad to keep Flynn waiting much longer. Although Yuri scoffed a bit and said that since we'd spent so much time chasing after him, it was about time he was the one waiting for us.

I was actually kind of glad we'd been forced to go swimming the day before, because the salt water had managed to wash a lot of the blood out of my clothes. Still wouldn't be as good as a proper shower (or even better, a long bath), but at least I didn't look like a mass murderer. I winced at my own choice of analogy...

Once at the inn, I was chafing to get over the whole "Guess what guys, royalty!" bit so I could clean up and go looking for someone to open Sophia's case. All those thoughts flew out of my head once we opened the door to the room where Flynn and Ioder were waiting for us.

We all tensed and Rita hissed out a venomous, "You...!"

"Yes? Have we met somewhere?" That horribly superior, patronizing voice!

_Goddammit Ragou's here too!_

x x x

Letha: ...You've been forgetting Repede lately.

Sylph: ...Ninja dog keeps going under my radar...must be because he still doesn't like you much.

Hint of Yustelle there so I should probably mention this now. Personally I don't see very strong evidence that Yuri has fallen in love with her by the end of the game. Definitely has a strong sense of affection, but so do people who care for someone in a brother-sister kind of way. _Given time_, maybe he'd love her romantically, but that would probably be a ways off.

As for Estelle, I think that she may be infatuated with him, but that doesn't mean they're automatic soul mates. She's rather new to even crushes since she's been so sheltered, in my opinion. So her reaction to Letha's teasing was as much, if not more, a reaction to a subject that she's only read about in books than confirmation of a Yustelle pairing.


	14. Chapter 14: Continue the Journey

Chapter 14: Continue the Journey

x x x

_SHIIIT, I can't BELIEVE I forgot Ragou would be here too!_ _And I have to stand here and listen to him slime his way out of this!_ I kept my head bowed so that I stared at the floor, hands trembling at my sides, and tried very hard not to listen. When Rita yelled angrily about the people she'd seen that had been eaten by monsters, I wanted to scream even louder that _I'd_ almost been eaten! But Ragou had never directly ordered me thrown down there, so he'd worm out of it anyway.

"It's settled then. I bid you all good day."

_Keep your eyes DOWN, Letha. Look up and you'll do something you MAY regret._ Though that was debatable, no matter what the consequences turned out to be for punching Ragou's monocle into his face.

"Who does that guy think he is?" _Rita's losing it. _ "And who the hell is he?" _That's the third time she's had to ask that. _Somebody_ please tell her so I don't have to keep pretending I don't know_.

"Settle down," Yuri ordered in...well, what I would call an authoritative tone befitting an officer of the knights. Huh.

Flynn started to introduce Ioder, "This is..." and indecisively trailed off. Fortunately for him, the nobles present took the situation into their own hands.

"This is His Royal Highness Ioder, candidate for the imperial throne."

Cue Karol's disbelieving laugh, "Yeah right, Estelle, good one..." A moment of awkward silence and some more disbelieving laughter... "...What?" _There's a foot in your mouth Karol. You put it there._

"I am only one of the candidates."

Then they launched into the whole drama of Yuri figuring out that something fishy was up with the council, imperial heir candidates, Flynn's orders, and Estelle's little quest to find Flynn. He and Flynn had their testy little back and forth "what exactly have you been doing?" "what have you accomplished that's any better?" spat.

I continued to stare blankly at the floor, clenching and relaxing my hands. I was afraid that if I relaxed, I'd run out that door and chase Ragou down again. _Paaatience, my dear, he'll get his...one way or another._

"How is anything different than it was before you joined the Knights?" _Flynn sounds patient and reasonable, but he's probably just as pissed off inside as the rest of us. How could he not be, the only other person here who can rival his need for justice is Yuri and _he's_ furious!_

There was a tense moment of silence, then Yuri brushed past Rita and me, radiating anger as he slammed the door. The sound seemed to break the others from the stupefied bystander spell. Karol looked around uncertainly before trying to follow Yuri out the door, "W-wait, I'm coming too..."

I dropped a hand on his shoulder, "Give him a moment alone first, Ace, then you can follow."

Flynn raised a hand to his face in a gesture somewhere between a facepalm and someone trying to relieve a headache. "I've done it again..." he sighed, "I only want for him to move on with his life. To quit sitting around."

"Flynn, I..."

At Estelle's voice Flynn became the responsible knight figure again. "...My apologies for such an embarrassing scene." _You know, I'd like to see Flynn being himself more often. It's kind of annoying seeing someone even _talk_ a certain way to fit a persona that's expected of them._

Ioder came out from his place behind the table to ask his...cousin? _How are he and Estelle related to each other exactly?_ "What do you intend to do next?" _Dude, am I the only who thinks he and Flynn kinda look alike?_

Brief part here about Estelle's wanting to keep running around outside the capitol to see how the real world worked. ...Yeah, my words, not hers.

Flynn clearly wanted to ship her off back home where she'd be "safe" (not bloody likely, considering what goes down later) but he was also deeply moved, like a father proud of his daughter starting to make her own way in the world. ...I'll stop making weird connections with them now...

"Lady Estellise... Understood." Flynn turned to where Karol, Rita, and I were waiting on stand by. "Miss Vitae," _wait, what, WHAT?_ "Tell Yuri to take good care of Lady Estellise."

"Uh, yeah, sure," I managed despite feeling like a brick had been chucked at the back of my head. _Doesn't he ask Karol to do that? Is it because he talked with me before, but not with the others?_

"Is it really all right?" Estelle looked at Flynn _like a little girl who'd just asked her father if she could really ride the merry-go-round by herself_, cut that out, me.

"I would rather do the job myself, but I'm afraid my current duties won't allow it." Pretty sure he meant the job of escorting Estelle and not the job of telling Yuri to play babysitter. "And as long as you're with him, I can be certain you'll be safe."

"You believe in him, don't you." _If Sodia were here she'd throw such a hissy-fit_.

The knight glanced over at me briefly as he answered, "I do." He must have remembered me acting all I-know-you-better-than-you-do and telling him that what he really wanted to do was let Yuri go free.

"If you guys are finished, can we get going? We'll lose him if we don't hurry." At Rita's words I nodded and followed her out the door to find our swordsman again.

We didn't have to go far, just down the street from the inn we saw him talking to an older man in a baggy purple coat.

"Argh. I'll get you, old man!" Rita was gone in a flash of red, chasing after the man in purple who kicked his heels together, waved, and took off. Karol and Estelle tried to chase him too, but were left in the dust.

_Oh...OH! Raven! Ah, yeah, I know what happens next! We go to that city that supposedly was destroyed by an earthquake! ...And fight an Entelexeia, shit_.

"Who was that?" I asked when I caught up to them (I _walked_, so I was the only one not out of breath). Inwardly I was doing a song and dance _Raven, Raven, Raven! Best old perv ever!_

"That old man tricked us to use as a distraction back at Ragou's mansion!" Rita snarled and kicked at a loose piece from one of the stones the street was paved with.

"You know, if he hadn't taken the only lift that went up, we might not have made it to the basement in time to save Letha and Pauly." Estelle's musing made me feel very cold.

"...Shit, that man is now my favorite person in the whole world." I said with a shudder. _I can almost feel those fangs on my arms again, and about to bite my neck..._

"Maybe he really is misunderstood," said Karol, mercifully breaking me away from that morbid train of thought.

"No way he is! It's not like he knew she was down there!"

"We're not going to get anywhere like this, so let's go follow that lead on the Blood Alliance." _Right, Yuri had probably just finished telling them before I got here, a rough looking guild was going north-west. He left out that it was Raven's intel though._

"To the northwest of here..." our living travel brochure mused, "the only city I can think of in that direction would be the one that was destroyed in an earthquake."

"What could they want to do in a place like that?" Estelle wondered.

"Hmm, good question." _Topic had been successfully directed away from Raven._

"And yet you still want to go?" Rita questioned Yuri's vague response.

"I'm just saying we should go and check it out."

"Maybe they're hoping to find some blastia left behind there?" I suggested, though I knew full well that the guild we'd run into was the Hunting Blades, Karol's former guild.

"Any intact blastia would have been recovered after the danger was over, but I suppose that it's possible for some to have been overlooked," the mage begrudged my point.

"Oh, Letha, weren't you going to look around the city for someone who could open your aunt's note case?"

I shrugged, "If we wait, we might lose the trail. The notes won't suddenly disappear if I don't read them now. But the sooner you can get the aque blastia back for the Lower Quarter, the better."

Yuri thanked me for understanding, and we left Torim Harbor as soon as we'd bought more supplies. Again, Estelle bought me another bag (smaller than the one I'd been using) and a few gels. _I feel like such a leech, I need to find a way to pay her back. But isn't this interesting, at what point did it just become a given that I would keep traveling with them?_

I smiled to myself. _Maybe I'm just on probation until they're sure I can go off on my own without getting myself half killed._

x x x_  
_

_**Destroyed by an Earthquake**_

_Yuri: Hey Karol, do you know anything else about that city you said was destroyed by an earthquake?_

_Karol: Just rumors. Supposedly, it was some guild's headquarters about ten years ago._

_Estelle: Which guild was that?_

_Karol: Sorry, I can't help you there._

_Estelle: Letha? Did your uncle ever mention it?_

_Letha: Huh? Uh no, his guild disbanded five years before that, so he probably didn't know anything about it._

_Rita: I've never heard of an earthquake that destroyed an entire city._

_Karol: Well, Aspio is across the ocean... Maybe the information just never made it that far?_

_Rita: Hmm, I wonder..._

x x x

My good mood from feeling like one of the group was stomped and spat on when bandits attacked.

_Someone is really fucking with me! I'm not ready for this!_ I hadn't even finished coming to terms with killing the Blood Alliance man!

"Ugh!" I rushed a bandit, and tried to smash the hilts of both daggers into his face. _Maybe I can surprise him and knock him out._ Unfortunately he was quicker than me and I got a nasty cut from his sword on my arm. _Shit! That almost feels like it cut to the bone!_

I didn't look at my injury to see if it had, just jumped back a bit and held it out for Estelle to heal. Once she'd stopped the bleeding and closed the wound I ran back in again. My bandit was already fighting Karol by now, so I went for one of the female spell casters.

_Shit, don't tell me these bandits are like family units? Kill one and the rest will hunger for your guts forever!_ I was not happy at all. I let my brain shut down and my body work on autopilot. Later I'd probably regret it, but whatever.

Not thinking can actually help you react better, so in a way I'd never fought as well as I did then. But I was also far more reckless, and had collected several cuts and bruises by the time we were done.

"You should be more careful! These could have been a lot worse than they are!" Estelle was scolding me as she fixed up a cut in my right shoulder. I was using my left hand to hold my hair and braid up and out of her way. "There, all done."

"Thanks Estelle." Instead of standing up right away, she sat quietly by my side. "Estelle?"

"Letha...was something wrong during the fight? You were...different."

"Oh, so you noticed..." I sighed, "I'm not so comfortable about killing. But I'll deal with it, so don't worry. I got over having to kill monsters, so this will just take a bit more time."

"What do you mean? That sounded like you feel bad about killing monsters." I blinked and looked over my shoulder at Karol.

"Umm, yeah. I feel bad about killing anything." The looks I received all asked for further explanation. "Well, anything alive has a right to live. And anything alive has a right to fight and protect itself." I didn't look up at any of them as I wiped the blood from daggers.

"Monsters, however, are easier to kill. Because to them that's just a natural part of survival. But people...people are never ready to die. Even if they say death doesn't scare them, they still don't really want to die. And when they die, other people suffer and hold grudges. Devote themselves to pointless things like revenge, and just make even more people miserable." I looked up, and _everyone was staring at me_. "Sorry?"

"...Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it." _I think_ _Yuri just got a bit of insight into why I was freaking out back on the ship._

"Aah, kinda..."

Happily, we didn't run into any more groups of bandits. Instead we fought a lot of these giant crab things and weird feathered lizards (...maybe closer to armored geckos with feathers?), and I concentrated on practicing strike artes to get through their tough exoskeletal shells.

I got pretty good at that weird move I did when fighting the Giant Doggie on Ehmead Hill. I named it Afterimage since the energy didn't actually get projected forward like with Yuri's Azure Edge or Estelle's Star Stroke. Estelle even showed me how to use Star Stroke. It wasn't all that different, just cut upwards with the sword instead of down, and channel the energy, umm, the aer further ahead.

But Afterimage and Star Stroke only worked when I used the dao. And I couldn't really pull off Repede's artes so I had to experiment with my daggers on my own. So far I only had the technique I used to climb the wall around Ragou's mansion, which I'd uncreatively named Pierce. Worked wonderfully on the crabs.

x x x

It was a day after we'd left Torim Harbor, and I'd been having attacks (the ones where I had trouble breathing) far more frequently. None were particularly bad, it was actual more like a constant dull ache in my chest that occasionally spiked a bit. To cover up for myself, I at times found myself acting even more...random.

"Huuug." I flopped over Karol's shoulders from behind and gave him a quick squeeze before darting off again.

He freaked a bit. "Wh-what was that about?"

"Huuug!" Gave Estelle a quick hug.

"Huh?"

"Flying Huuug!" I leaped up and wrapped my arms around Yuri's neck, hanging off of his back and making him stagger a bit. "Huh, funny, hugging you feels a lot like hugging Uncle Ludwig. But not quite as bulky in the shoulders." Actually, it was more like how I imagined it would feel if I dared to hug my second oldest brother like that.

"What are you doing?"

"Sometimes I really need to hug other people," I dropped down again. "If you don't like it, let me know and I won't jump you again." Not a lie really. But the momentary difficulty breathing had made me weak kneed for a moment, and I'd leaned on Karol for support. The impromptu hug fest was to cover that. I spun around and held my arms out in Rita's direction. "Hug?" No jumping her, she might roast me.

She looked outright scandalized. "What? No way!" I heaved a dramatic sigh as I dropped my arms and turned away.

"Your loss. Hugs are good for the soul."

"If you're done, can we go? How much farther, Captain Karol?"

"I think we're almost there."

"Oh! I can see it!"

x x x

It started raining not long before we reached the first building. I threw the hood of my green coat over my hair, and then stuck my hands under my arms to help keep my fingers warm.

"Man, this place is a total wreck," Yuri observed.

"They call places like this 'ruins' for a reason you know."

"Do you seriously think anybody would come to a place like this?" Rita looked back at Yuri, her doubtful expression speaking volumes for her opinion on his information. His next words didn't help.

"I wonder if we've been fed some false information again."

"Again...?" Karol might have clued in to the unspoken reference to the information being Raven's... Then again, probably not.

"That's far enough! This area is under the jurisdiction of the Hunting Blades." _You know? I just realized I really don't like the first impression Nan gives. Bossy little brat._

"That voice...?"

"These measures have been taken to prevent the injury of innocent bystanders."_ Suuure, you guys just don't want anyone to get in your way!_

"Nan!" Karol looked happy enough to climb up the wall she was standing on to hug her. "All right! I finally found you!" She, however, looked shocked enough to kick him off if he tried. "Are the chief and Tison with you? Have you guys been getting along okay without me?"

"Don't take that buddy-buddy tone with me."

"Aw, don't be like that. I only got a little lost." _He totally doesn't get how ticked she is with him._

It escalated into a shouting match, Nan accusing Karol of being a coward and mocking him for being kicked out of all the guilds. She refused to listen to any of his denials or explanations, instead throwing, "Even we've already fired you!" in his face.

"W-wait!" But Nan wasn't even paying attention to him anymore.

"You have been warned by the Hunting Blades! Leave this area at once! If you fail to heed this warning, you do so at the risk of your own lives." She jumped down the other side of the wall and was gone.

"Nan!"

Estelle made a sympathetic sound, but apparently couldn't think of anything to say to comfort him.

After a moment of uneasy quiet no one wanted to break, Yuri tried to smooth things over like nothing had happened. "This still doesn't explain what the Hunting Blades are doing here."

"Hunting. What else would they be doing?" _Hmm, I keep making smart ass responses like this. Should be careful I don't step on their toes so much_. It was normal behavior for me, though, based on how I acted with friends back home.

Rita started walking through the ruined entrance into the devastated city. "Rita, wait. Are you forgetting about the warning?" Estelle innocently called.

"She never said we weren't allowed to enter." Rita was right about that. '_No lifeguard on duty, swim at your own risk' kind of situation_.

"But what about the 'risking our lives' part?" the princess asked nervously.

Rita scoffed, "Are you implying that I should listen to that brat? Don't make me laugh."

"It's not like we weren't expecting to run into some danger here, right?" I tried pointing out. "Monsters and ruins and guilds, oh my." They looked at me weird (except Karol, he was moping), and then decided to let my randomness go without comment.

"At any rate, the Blood Alliance doesn't seem to be here. Let's have a look around." Again it was Yuri who got us moving along again, though Karol stood with his head hanging for a little longer. He eventually followed after us, Yuri hanging back a bit to walk near him.

x x x

_**Karol, Fired**_

_Karol: Man...why did it have to end up like this... They said...they said I was f-f-fired..._

_Estelle: Karol, keep your spirits up!_

_Karol: I can't be happy anymore... It's like her words are a dagger in my heart..._

_Yuri: She was just worried that it'd be too dangerous for you. There's still hope._

_Karol: Huh? Y-you think so? ...Uh, whatever. I don't care what she thinks!_

_Yuri: The problem is your guild, right? I get it._

_Karol: R-right, yeah. I don't care about Nan..._

_Rita: This hurts to watch._

_Estelle: I'm rooting for you, Karol!_

_Letha: Looks to me like his case needs more help than that..._

_**Doesn't Seem Like an Earthquake**_

_Estelle: Was this town really destroyed by an Earthquake? The buildings all look kind of strange._

_Yuri: Yeah. They don't really look like they collapsed from the ground shaking... Something's weird._

_Karol: Yeah, so...how were they destroyed, then?_

_Yuri: Got me. Maybe we can find out by asking someone who used to live in the town._

_Letha: There was a war ten years ago, wasn't there? What if that had something to do with what happened here?_

_Estelle: But how?_

_Letha: I...can't really make a guess at this point._

_Rita: That's not really why we're here though, so why should we care?_

_Yuri: You actually have a point there._

_**The Hunting Blades**_

_Estelle: What do the Hunting Blades mainly do, as a guild?_

_Karol: Like their name says, they make their living hunting monsters._

_Yuri: It's not like there's any shortage of monsters once you're outside the barriers. Business must be booming._

_Karol: Yeah, they definitely get a lot of commissions. But the Hunting Blades aren't killing monsters just because someone asked them to. Monsters are evil. This evil must be punished. That's the creed of the Hunting Blades._

_Letha: *whispers* Bull..._

_Yuri: I wonder if any of them are doing it just for their own personal grudges against monsters._

_Karol: Oh yeah. A lot of people. Like, Nan's parents were killed right before her eyes when she was a kid._

_Yuri: Huh. It'd be hard not to hold a grudge after something like that._

_Letha: *to herself* Evil is a construct defined by people. From the monsters perspective, if there even is such a concept of evil, surely it would be us..._

x x x

I was absorbed by my own thoughts while we explored the ruins. For some reason, I had a nagging feeling that someone was watching us. But I couldn't put my finger on why, and figured it could very well be my writer skills giving themselves a workout in the slightly creepy environment.

When my left hand flashed warm for a moment I thought I'd imagined that too. I stopped in my tracks and waved my hand around a bit, but got nothing... Puzzled, I continued following the group. Fortunately no one seemed to notice my brief stop.

This happened a few more times over the next hour or so we looked around. Once at the trap door where Yuri scared Karol by joking about monsters biting off his foot while climbing down, again while Rita was studying one of the warp blastia we found and activated. _This is ridiculous. I'm fighting green owls, brown tadpole-totoro hybrids, and flying umbrellas while looking over my shoulder every five minutes! And my roommate would kill me if she ever found out I helped kill a giant tortoise!_

We happened to see the Hunting Blades chief, Clint, kill a monster in one blow. Yuri whistled, impressed, and we got an explanation from Karol that having such a huge group of guild members following Clint was very unusual.

_Hmm, the game gives some kind of tutorial here, right? About killing monsters in one hit? I guess nobody made a big deal about that because that's more like strategy in real life. If you've had any real training, you know how to look for opportunities for a critical hit._

I lost both the feeling of being watched and the occasional warm tingling alerts of my left hand once we started exploring deeper inside the buildings. On the other hand, the painful pressure inside my chest started to increase. Caught up in my own effort to breathe and keep walking forward, I didn't notice the others were showing signs of distress until Karol said something.

"Wh-what's up? I feel kind of sick all of a sudden."

"Even someone as dense as you can feel it?" Rita sounded as exhausted as if she'd just run a marathon.

"Who are you calling—Wait, does that mean you can feel it, too?"

"Ugh, what a feeling..." Yuri grunted.

_Wait, if everyone's getting sick, then this is the place with really dense aer._ Now that I was looking for it I could see small glowing green...droplets? Yes, they looked like drops of green water floating up from the ground. _Oh,_ I thought, _I've really been an idiot_. And then I passed out again, like when I first came to Terca Lumireis.

x x x

This chapter...just wasn't as much fun to write as the last few. But the next ones should be good. I like devious plotting...


	15. Chapter 15: Why Did You Lie?

It's wonderful to hear what you guys like about Fairy Tales and Brave Vesperia! I've made sure to answer everyone's reviews the moment I get them to try and show how much this means to me.

Now for Rhino600, since I unfortunately can't send immediate replies via email for your review.

I'm highly honored by your praise, both as a writer and as a fan of Tales of Vesperia!

I'm also glad to see so many people figuring things out right on schedule. I was afraid I was either being to obvious or not clear enough, but you all got it just as it clicked in Letha's head!

The tattoo and any other side effects are for you all to keep speculating about however ;)

x x x

Chapter 15: Why Did You Lie?

x x x

I woke up to the sound of Rita shrieking as she only can when a blastia is involved. "You're dead, freak! Dead!" This was followed by a sound like a whale crying. _Ahhh?_ I looked up blearily and saw a flying steroid dolphin. _...Judith's second coming._

I had to assume the others had carried me with them, rather than leave me behind where monsters could get me or wait in the aer dense area for me to recover. Good thing, since I finally figured out I'd been suffering from aer sickness all this time. Being from the aerless Earth, my body wasn't accustomed to an environment where everything was made of aer, so was more sensitive to the sickness. It had been gradually getting less intense because my body was slowly adapting. I really was an idiot for not figuring it out earlier.

The Entelexeia was going wild (I couldn't remember his name, so for the time being he was Ent), as was Clint who was flailing his own oversized sword around and shouting. What is it with people and using swords half to twice their size?

I pushed myself back onto my feet, ready to fight or run as needed, and tried to cover for knowing the situation despite having been unconscious. "Guys, what the hell is going on?"

"You're okay!" I nodded to Karol, "I don't really get it, but some really dense aer made us all sick. There was a reverse blastia keeping a giant monster trapped in here, but then the Dragon Rider showed up and destroyed the blastia. Now the monster's on a rampage!"

Not approving of Clint's eagerness to fight Ent, Judith and Ba'ul blasted the Hunting Blades with a burst of fire. Nan threw her crescent shaped blade at Judith who spun and looped through the air to dodge. Shouting happily (could he be related to Zagi, perchance?) the hooded Hunting Blade member called Tison ran up a wall and leaped through the air to reach her. While he and Judith struggled on Ba'ul's back, Ent let out an angry bellow that shook the building.

We ducked to avoid the rubble flying everywhere. Everyone was exclaiming in fear and disbelief, but I hardly noted what they were saying. I'd just gotten my first good look at Ent.

He was _BIG_.

Seriously, he could eat steroid dolphin Ba'ul in two bites if he wanted to! And swallow _me _whole! Or step on me without even realizing there was a squishy sounding bump in the road!

My brothers took Spanish in high school, and occasionally started using phrases they learned around the house. The one that quite randomly came out of my mouth at that moment was, "No me gusta..." Then followed up with my own time in French class when I started shouting "Zut, zut, et zut!" when the big rock and crystal looking Entelexeia attacked.

Yuri made some casual remark about having to take care of someone else's pet for them as he threw himself back to dodge a swing from a rock like...paw? Fist? ...Stump?

"Afterimage!" I slashed away with my dao on Ent's left side. I felt guilty for attacking the Entelexeia when he only wanted to escape from the humans trying to kill him, but I doubted we'd manage to do any damage to the behemoth that he wouldn't be able to recover from.

Yuri, Repede, Estelle, and I were all dancing around using strike artes and trying to stab him with our respective swords (or daggers) without getting hit by his pseudo fists and tail. Rita stayed back and blasted him with spells (mostly Fireball, sometimes Champagne or Stone Blast) while stuffing orange gels into her mouth like candy. We would frequently have to jump between her and Ent, or she'd duck behind a piece of rubble to avoid the thrashing tail. Karol? He booked it when we weren't looking. I hoped he made it outside on his own safely.

_It's like playing jump rope again! Ultimate Jump Rope, time it wrong and smoosh! your knees are jelly!_ While thinking that I actually accidentally _landed_ on his tail when I misjudged the speed of it's swing. "Woah-oh!" The tail jerked out from under me and I landed hard on my back. "Uggh, failed back fall, that hurts!" Blinking the pained tears out of my eyes, I looked up to see the tail about to come slamming down on me.

Suddenly I felt my hand grow warm again, and from somewhere off in the shadows near the exit an arrow with scarlet fletching came shooting past my shoulder. I only managed to get out a squeak of surprise before it slammed into the tail above my head and barely managed to deflect it enough so that it smashed into the ground next to me. I scrambled to my feet and backed away, _Holy shit, how much force would it take for an arrow to even _do_ that? And does that mean Raven's here? WHY?_

At some point, Yuri managed to get on Ent's back and began using Destruction Field to smash it between the shoulders and on the back of its neck. _That seems like a good move to try and learn..._ It was the blow that seemed to, I dunno, knock sense back into the head of the panicking Entelexeia. He quieted, and the others stopped attacking. They seemed unsure what to make of the sudden change, but I just sighed in relief and sheathed my dao and the one dagger I held in my left hand. I wasn't sure when I'd drawn that one.

Ent looked us all over with intelligent eyes, pausing to study Estelle for a while longer, before he turned and left through one of the holes in the wall.

"We made it," Estelle sighed in relief as she fell to her knees.

"What about Karol?" asked Rita, looking around and noticing for the first time that the little Ace wasn't around.

Across the room we heard Tison shouting, "There ain't a monster alive that wasn't born to be my punching bag." _Freak is an arrogant muscle head..._

"Master! It's too dangerous!" Nan shouted back over the noise of the increasing number of rocks falling from the ceiling.

"This monster is mine, even if it costs me my life!" Tison ran up the wall again to try and intercept Judith in the air before she and Ba'ul could escape through the ceiling. _She's still here? Must have been trying to make sure we didn't kill what's-his-name-Ent._ Tison fell short of Ba'ul and plummeted back down to the rock ground.

"Ho shit!" I ran forward to see if he had survived, and was stunned to see him twist in the air like a cat to land on his hands and feet. "Hoo shiiit." _Blastia make some awesome things possible, but I think that's as much a result of him being really really weird_. If he hadn't staggered when getting up, and wobbled a _lot_ when following Clint, Nan, and the rest of the Hunting Blades out the nearest exit, I would have decided he was part monster himself.

We all ran to make our own escape, practically dragging Estelle who wasn't convinced that Karol had made his own escape. Two things were on my mind as we left: what if Karol hadn't made it out safely? And who shot the arrow that saved me?

When we made it up the winding staircase and out the door, we were greeted by the relieving sight of Nan chastising Karol for leaving us behind. It was hard to listen to, her berating him for always being a coward.

"If you're not ashamed of anything, then shouldn't you hurry back to your friends?" _Wait, that almost sounds like..._

"It's just that..." Karol raised his head a fraction, but was cut off by Nan again.

"No need to explain to me. I think you've got other people who'll listen to you." _I really think that's Nan trying to encourage Karol to talk things over with us, to make sure we're not mad with him. Or am I reading too deep into this?_ She sounds harsh whenever she talks to Karol, but she does seem to repeatedly show concern for him over the story.

In surprise Karol turned to see us walking up from the direction Nan had indicated. "Guys..." He had a guilty look, exactly like the one my dog used to have when she'd give us a sad "won't you love me anyway?" expression.

I couldn't resist. I ran up to him and squeezed him in a hug. "D'aww, you're okay little Ace! I was afraid you got squished by a falling pebble or under the En-the monster's foot!"

"Gyah!" His cry was muffled somewhat by my chest... I laughed and let him go.

More prim but no less relieved was Estelle. "Karol, I'm so glad you're safe." Her hands were clasped as if in prayer of thanks.

"Where the hell did you go? We were really in a jam back there." Lucky for Karol that we were between him and Rita, or she would have punctuated that with a punch or a fireball.

"I'm... I'm sorry..."

"Hey, at least you made it out in one piece." Yuri ruffled the kid's hair in a brotherly fashion. _Always acting so cool, inwardly you're caramelldansen! God, I hope not. The dance is amusing but that song hits the wrong button in me._

"I'm leaving," Nan announced, sounding like she wanted to barf at all the fluffy friendship feelings. _Or to hide your relief that we forgave him? Unlike all the other guilds? Maybe..._

"Wait..."

"You think long and hard about what you've done. That's all I have to say to you." Karol watched Nan's receding figure with the sad puppy-dog look again. Noticing this, Yuri began rubbing his hair again vigorously.

"Hey, cut it out!" The boy ducked his head and covered it protectively.

"Let's get going, Karol. We're all tired."

"Yuri..."

Rita cut the touching moment short to complain (or help distract Karol?). "Man, we were way off. The Blood Alliance was nowhere to be seen."

"No kidding. We'll have to take any information that guy gives us with a grain of salt."

"'Guy'...?" Rita stared at Yuri in dawning comprehension and disbelief. "You don't mean...?"

"Yeah." He held out a hand in a _what can you do about it _way. Yuri's version of a shrug.

"Ooh! I am gonna roast that deadbeat the moment I see him." I nervously edged to the side so that Yuri was standing between me and the seething mage's direct line of fire. Thankfully the sweet and hard to hate princess tried to calm her down.

"Let's...let's take it easy on the way back." So saying, we all started to pick our way back through the maze-like ruin of a city, Yuri calling back when Karol lagged behind. He was still depressed, and I couldn't blame him after the rough time he'd had.

x x x

_**Aersick**_

_Karol: So aer is more than just a handy substance for making blastia work, huh?_

_Rita: The questions amateurs ask, I swear... Aer affects everything in the world. Our own bodies, the growth of living organisms, even the weather._

_Estelle: So the blastia in Ragou's palace that controlled the weather was interfering with the aer?_

_Rita: Correct._

_Yuri: So then, that means the aer here is interfering with the processes in our bodies._

_Karol: I mean, I can handle it, but is it really a good idea for us to be in aer this dense?_

_Rita: We shouldn't stay here too long. Especially runts like you who are still growing. The younger you are, the more of an effect the aer will have._

_Yuri: Huh, guess that makes sense._

_Rita: Though what I don't understand is why it effected Letha the strongest. For her to actually faint while the runt could still handle it is weird._

_Letha: A-ah? Um, well, I've always been a bit more sensitive to aer than most people. I think it's one of the reasons my uncle wouldn't let me leave home until recently. Normally it isn't a problem for me._

_Rita: Hmm._

_**The Dragon Freak**_

_Rita: The next time I see that freak, my magic will be ready! No mercy!_

_Yuri: What's she so mad about?_

_Estelle: It looks like she's upset that we let that dragon rider escape._

_Yuri: I never thought he'd go so far as the Caer Bocram underground to destroy blastia. Now that's dedication._

_Rita: The next time we meet, I'll choke the life out of him with my bare hands!_

_Estelle: Rita's pretty dedicated herself..._

x x x

Not far from where we first entered the city, I felt my left hand growing warm again for just a moment. This time I quickly swept my hand around in the air around me, as if trying to catch that feeling of warmth before it escaped. Feeling it flicker again, almost as if I'd imagined it, I broke away from the path and started running after it.

"Wh- Hey! Letha, what are you doing?"

I spun as I ran to yell back at them, "I'm sorry! I don't have time to explain! I'll be back in a few minutes!" and then ran again. I could hear them shouting something at me, but I wasn't paying attention to what it was.

_If it comes and goes like that, that means a piece of the heirloom is moving! Could a monster have it, or...?_ I stumbled, almost tripping over a root, but used the momentum from the almost-fall to keep propelling myself forward. Only to trip over something else. "Shi-!"

I was saved by a hand grabbing me by the upper arm. "Just what the hell are you doing?" _Yuri's angry!_ He hadn't let go of me, holding my left arm with bruising force so I wouldn't run again. _No! I'll lose it!_ I spun to face him, and reacted by reflex before we came to a full stop.

My left hand twisted around to grab him by the inside of his elbow, and my other hand flew up to grip his shoulder. I had a second to see the surprised look in his dark eyes before I stepped back with my left leg and allowed the momentum from him reaching out to grab me force him into continuing past me. He rolled across the ground from his own force and my guiding hands, and I ran past him again. "Letha!"

_So close!_ The others were still chasing me and I hadn't slowed Yuri by much.

Suddenly there was nothing there when my foot came down, and I found myself sliding down a slope on my back. Once I stopped at the bottom I lay dazed, staring up at the clouded gray sky. _My hand is burning._ I scrambled to my feet again.

Standing with his back to me was a man with red hair and a long coat in an odd blue-purple color.

"You...!" He turned around, and the man facing me was Alastor.

"So good of you to join me, although you're running a little late." He pushed his spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose.

"Wha...?"

He smirked at me with a confidence that was absent the last two times I'd met him. Then he raised a hand and flashed something at me. "I was certain you received my invitation not long after arriving here." He was holding three pieces of the heirloom, nearly identical to the first I had found but with different jewels on the ends.

I was immediately wary. It was obvious he knew that I was searching for those, and his words made it just as clear that he knew that I had a method of sensing them. "Why do you have those?"

"My own business. Though perhaps if you tell me whether you managed to recover your "aunt's" notes...?" I unconsciously gripped the bag Estelle had bought for me tighter, and he smirked again. "Ah, good." A flick of his hand and the pieces were hidden again like a magic trick. "Well, that's all I wanted to know."

I expected him to start trying to bargain for the notes with the heirloom pieces, but instead he turned and just started to walk away. "Wait!" He turned and raised an eyebrow at me. "That can't be the only reason you came out in the middle of nowhere and started flashing _those _around? Just to see if I'd found Sophia's notes?"

"Letha!" Yuri and the others came running out of the trees behind me, though only Karol was unlucky enough to slip and fall down like I had. Whatever angry words they each had for me died once they saw the stranger there with me. "And just who the hell are you?"

Alastor swept a low bow. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Yuri Lowell." He stood up and smirked _again_. "Pleased as well to meet you, Ladies Estellise Sidos Heurassein and Rita Mordio, and young Master Karol Capel. I am Alastor Todhunter, an acquaintance of this young lady here." They were all visibly shaken that he knew their names. Yuri was one thing, his wanted posters made recognizing him a common occurrence, but _all _of them?

I glared at Alastor. "Stop trying to psyche them out, or I swear I'll knife you."

"Such a violent young lady," he sighed. "Though you are right, there was one other piece of business I had with you." From under his coat he somehow produced the bag I had gotten from Ludwig. "You left this back in Ragou's mansion my dear. The name 'forgetfulness' seems to suit you quite well, hmm?" He tossed the bag in my direction, I caught it and nearly dropped it on the ground in my surprise. "Try to take better care of your things? Especially the ones you don't want curious eyes to find..."

The bag in my hands shook as I began to put together pieces in my mind. "Bastard. If you could get my bag back so easily, why didn't you go look for Sophia's notes yourself?"

The smile on his face was broad yet thin. "Why I told you already, did I not? Those notes are most suitable in your hands rather than belonging to someone who does not understand their true value." With a courteous nod of his head, he turned again and with a few long strides was lost from sight in the trees.

I stared after him, unbelieving, my mouth hanging open. It seemed he managed to do that _every time _I talked to him. "Aaaagh! I _hate_ that bastard!" The only other person who pissed me off and left me at a loss like this was Nevi!

…

_GODDAMMIT, HE'S A FAIRY TOO!_

"Just what is going on here?" Yuri demanded. I winced at the hard and cold tone of his voice. Slowly I turned to face the music, and got Rita's punch in my gut.

I doubled over in pain. "Tha hell-?"

"Idiot! We already told you to stop doing such stupid things!"

"I'm sorry!" I gasped, "But I really didn't have any time to explain!" _How does a girl who spends all her time researching get such a killer punch?_

"Who was that person?" Estelle asked, mercifully withholding her own scolding for the time being. She and Karol were hanging back, letting the other two deal with yelling at me. But they both had sad and hurt looks in their eyes that made me feel like I'd kicked an entire litter of newborn puppies.

"Man I met in Nor Harbor... Claimed he knew my aunt...," I slowly straightened again, but kept my arms wrapped protectively around my middle. "_He's_ the one who told me about Sophia's notes in Ragou's Manor."

"You actually trusted that suspicious freak?"

"He seemed more trustworthy when I first met him," _though not by much_, "and it really seemed like he knew Aunt Sophia. Now I'm not sure if he'd ever even seen her before..." _Ugh, how do I explain the random running off...?_ "I've felt like someone was watching since we got here, but thought I was imagining it. Then I thought I saw him just before we were about to leave, and I had to catch him before he got away..." _Close enough, I suppose_.

"Dammit, Letha, why don't you just tell us these things?" I flinched. Yuri usually takes things as they come, so his anger was actually more frightening to me than the perpetually hot-tempered Rita. It triggered an instinctive need to run that I had to quash down before making things worse.

"If I'd known the guy was using me like that, I would have told you!" I probably would have, everything except the fact that he was tied to the fairy fiasco I was in somehow. He was the type of slippery and cunning bastard who would try to turn allies against each other. Not letting them know he apparently had an agenda that involved me could have put the entire group in danger.

I bit my lip and looked down at my bag. _'Try to take better care of your things? Especially the ones you don't want curious eyes to find...'_ "I don't think he's done with me yet, either."

x x x

AccessBlade, still feel like kicking Alastor in the head? Letha would cheer you on...

I'm back home for a week, so happy3

Though that means I'll probably have internet problems, and our house is pretty cold compared to the dorms...but my bed is so much more comfortable, and I have all the extra blankets in the house!


	16. Chapter 16: What's In A Name

Tripped up starting this a few times, then it really took off running and almost left me behind! I'm posting it up kinda quick, so there might be more errors than usual. Happy Thanksgiving!

x x x

Chapter 16: What's In A Name

x x x

Yuri sighed and then gave one of his one handed shrugs, that worked double time as a questioning gesture. "So what can you tell us about this guy?"

"Yeah! It was pretty weird that he knew all of our names like that." _Personally, I think the only name it's strange for him to know is your's Karol. Estelle's a princess, Rita's a highly respected genius, and Yuri's an infamous wanted man._

"Did you tell him about us?"

I shook my head before Estelle had even finished asking her question. "No, we never talked about anything other than Aunt Sophia and her research." _If he really is a fairy, he probably knew everyone the same way Nevi knows that I'm familiar with this world as a game._ "Actually, he was the one who first approached me, saying he thought I was Sophia. Then the next time I saw him he called me by name without me ever telling him. That's why I thought he was telling the truth." _...Lie. But in a twisted way, also true._

"So basically, everything that happened was that Alastor guy's fault. Including Ragou's mansion, he tricked you into going in on your own. Is that right?"

I blinked in surprise at how easily Yuri managed to diffuse the situation. He even somehow made things _less_ my fault. "Um, yeah, that's pretty much it." _Maybe he's going to wait until he gets me alone to get some answers out of me?_

"In that case, he may have been spying on us all in order to get close to Letha." We all looked at Yuri in shock. _Wait, this really does make it look like none of this was my fault. I'm just the simple country girl who was raised alone in the woods, falling for a cunning bastard's trick._ "Do you have any idea why?" I shook my head again.

"I don't get what he wants from me. He went through all this trouble so I'd get my aunt's notes, but didn't try to take them from me. And he probably could have gotten them on his own with even less trouble. All I can think is he wants me to see whatever she wrote, but I've got no clue why."

"Then we just have to get that case open once we get back to town. Once we do we'll figure something out." Rita spun on her heel and started walking away. "So let's hurry up and get out of here already!"

I made sure not to fall to the back of the group while we were walking. If there were any lingering trust issues (likely) then it would help the situation if I didn't look like I was getting ready to bolt again. In the future I'd stick with the group even if I felt a piece of the heirloom nearby. Better to just try and remember where it was so I could go back for it.

We followed the path we'd broken through the foliage back to where we'd been in Caer Bocram. Thinking we'd finally be able to leave the place we followed the main street back to the entrance. Once there I groaned inwardly. _Crap, another really hatable person who I totally forgot we'd run into._ Who was it? Cumore.

Repede outright growled at the powder blue haired man.

"Ah, the common rabble. So I've finally found you. That's far enough."

With hand on hip and head tilted carelessly, Yuri indulged in his old hobby of baiting knights and conceited nobles. "You lackeys must have had a lot of time on your hands if you crossed the ocean just to see us."

"Humph... You're in no position to talk down to the likes of me," Cumore sneered. "Now, Princess, right this way." _Finally, don't have to worry about that slipping out and giving me problems_. Estelle backed away as the very disturbing captain approached us.

"Huh? What does he mean, 'princess'?" Karol looked to Estelle in confusion.

"The princess standing right here in front of us," Yuri told him matter of fact.

"Y-Yuri... But how did you...?" _Come to think of it, how should I act for my reaction?_

"What? ...Estelle's a princess?"

"I suspected as much myself," Rita informed us.

"Rita... You, too?" She looked to me next, and I settled for giving an 'I'm not really surprised, but don't care much either way' kind of shrug. I suck at acting. I'd gotten by so far by just getting them accustomed to me being weird.

"W-wait, you've gotta be kidding..."

Estelle steeled her nerve and stepped ahead of us to address Cumore. "...And what will happen to my friends?"

"Why, they'll be drawn and quartered for abducting a member of the royal family, of course." _...How medieval._

"Please wait. I wasn't abduc-"

"Ah what a mouthy young lady you are. This way, please!"

_Okay, what the hell?_ "Do you think you can get away with saying something like that? I'd totally smack you with my vaguely-oriental-wood-and-paper-fans if I'd brought them with me!" My roommate laughed so hard the first time she heard me call them that. From the corner of my eye I saw Yuri's mouth twitch in a smile.

Cumore was not nearly so amused. When his subordinates surrounded us with their...spears? I think that type was called a halberd, actually. But while we were being threatened with them, Cumore drew his sword and menaced me with it first. "Learn to watch your tongue, you commoner rat."

"I resent that. Anyone will tell you I'm a very _un_common rat." Rita actually laughed a bit at that one.

Whatever response he was about to say to that was cut off by a very loud voice shouting from behind him. "Arrest the culprit Yuri Lowell and his accomplices!" The fashion challenged captain turned (I breathed a sigh of relief when the sword moved away from me) and his face twisted when he saw Leblanc.

"Gah...you. The Schwann Brigade...!" _Curses, foiled again?_ "Just a minute! This prize catch is mine! I won't let you take him away from me that easily!"

I leaned over a bit and whispered to Yuri, "You hear that? You're a 'prize catch'! Should I be asking for your autograph?"

"Whatever happened to taking my place as a celebrity?" he returned. _Yay! He's making jokes with me again, so I'm forgiven?_

"Working on it, I have one stalker so far and you've got the lead with, like, four at least." He snorted, and we returned our attention to the knights discussing our immediate futures.

"What is wrong with condemning criminals to their deaths?"

"Should not criminals be captured and judged in accordance with the laws?"

"...Humph... I suppose I can let you have these little worms." Cumore stalked away with "dignity" (saaarcasm) and his brigade, muttering, "If it isn't Schwann, it's Flynn. These upstart commoners are so full of themselves... Even that Commandant..."

"This way please, Your Highness. Do watch your step..." _That's more like it! Leblanc is at least _courteous_ while carting us off to throw behind bars!_ Though Adecor and Baccus had their hands pretty full with a very angry mage, who was furious at being called a member of the "Yuri Lowell Gang." And Karol was wailing that he hadn't _done_ anything. I simply mumbled about how the evident lack of creativity in that name concerned me when a nameless knight took my weapons from me.

"Don't hurt them! I beg you...!"

"Estelle, don't worry."

"Yuri..!"

As the knights escorted us on our way (one apparently pulling on Yuri's arm too hard to make him walk faster. I'd bet money he was someone Yuri had thrown a rock at.) I could hear Leblanc talking to someone.

"Sir Schwann, we shall take these undesirables to Heliord." _Schwaaann!_ I tried to crane my head around and get a look at the captain and got shoved from behind. _Tch, fine. Be that way._

x x x_  
_

_**Estelle, the Princess**_

_Karol: I was so surprised to find out that Estelle was a princess!_

_Yuri: I had a feeling. She knew Flynn, and she was obviously brought up as a noble..._

_Rita: Shut up. You knew, already._

_Yuri: Maybe..._

_Karol: Oh man... I wonder if I was rude to her without realizing it?_

_Yuri: Your language has been unpardonable. Captain Karol, the sentence for insulting royalty is...decapitation. Been nice knowing you._

_Karol: What about you? You're way more rude than I am!_

_Yuri: Guess it's off with both our heads, then._

_Letha: I wonder if they'll stick our heads on pikes as a warning to others._

_Karol: What? Th-that's..._

_Rita: Idiots..._

x x x

I was reminded of that scene in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie where Jack Sparrow is about to be hung from the gallows and all his crimes against the crown are being read aloud.

"Continuing on, we will review the particulars of your eighteenth crime."

"Please do."

"Is it true that you threw a knight sent to collect the taxes into the river?"

"Wow, I'd forgotten about that. Was that you, Tweedle A?"

"That's right! I was in bed with a cold for three whole days thanks to you!"

"Just from getting thrown into a river? You wimp..."

"You stay out of this, wench!" Haha, I had gotten into a name calling spat with Adecor earlier, and he still wasn't happy with me.

"Sure thing, Simon." Yeah, because he's always saying "I say," I'd given him the new nickname of Simon... Even if he didn't get the joke, it was obvious I was making fun of him.

Yuri groaned "...How many more of these are there? This is getting pretty boring."

"...I wonder what'll happen to me." Karol's head was buried in his hands, and hadn't been responding to any of us. The knights mostly left him be, because every time one tried to talk to him he'd start wailing in fear that they were about to decapitate him. That was Yuri's fault, and he had the grace to look a little sheepish about it. After he had his fill of laughing at it.

"So, I'll write you have 'no signs of remorse' in the report then..." Boccos scribbled on a clipboard. There was no space left to write on the table, it was entirely covered with stacks of paperwork pertaining to Yuri's crimes.

There were some interesting ones. Apparently he'd once stripped a knight of his clothes and left him tied up in his underwear at the gates to the royal quarter. I'm sure the knight did something to deserve it. The knights probably didn't even know about all the things Yuri had done...

"Where's that do-nothing captain of yours, anyway? What was his name? Schwann?"

"Playing hooky because he's the big shot." It was amazing that Rita was restraining herself from blasting something.

"You dare mock our captain? Sir Schwann is a legendary hero and a veteran of the Great War ten years ago." _Yuri isn't the only guy around with fanboys. Leblanc leads Schwann's fanclub_.

"So basically, his eminence would never stoop so low as to deal with nobodies like us."

"Quiet, I say! Quiet! Getting on to your next offense..."

There was a click as the door across the room swung open and then shut. We all looked up and saw a gray-white haired man followed by a Krytian woman with long blue hair. Leblanc saluted sharply. "Y-your Excellency Commandant Alexei! To what do we owe this pleasure?"

_I still don't understand why Khroma...Kroma?...whatever. I don't get why she follows Alexei at this point. She has to know what he's planning, doesn't she try anything to stop him?_ That was what bothered me most about Tales of Vesperia's plot. So much could have been solved if several big shots got off their butts and tried to stop things, instead of sitting back and seeing if Yuri and company could deal. And at the least they could have explained what was going on to Brave Vesperia instead of letting the new guild run around blind. Most of the time they were like "I know the answer, but I'm gonna make you run half way across the world to ask someone else about it." And then that someone else _dies_ and they have to go back to plan A.

Busy brooding, I didn't pay much attention. Just some jazz about us being pardoned, Yuri losing his infamous celebrity status, and turning down the offered reward for saving both royals. Oh, and that Estelle was returning to the castle. Except I knew that of course she wouldn't. The news hit everyone else pretty hard, though.

"So Estelle's going back home, huh," Karol said with downcast eyes.

"You don't have a problem with this, Yuri?" Rita eyed the swordsman._ I wonder just how she's expecting him to react. Be all Robin Hood and spirit the noble lady away into a handy forest?_ Yuri as Robin Hood, an odd yet somewhat fitting image...

"It's not my decision to make."

"Well...I guess that's true, but..."

"You don't seem very upset about it either Letha." _Crap, acting fail_.

I shrugged and decided to be truthful. "I have a feeling she hasn't had her fill of the world yet. Good odds she'll manage to sweet talk Flynn into letting her go." They seemed to accept that (probably decided that I was in denial) and started talking about Heliord and where we were in relation to the other major cities of the continent.

I fought the itch to excuse myself and test the town for a tattoo reaction. Wandering off on my own had been ending badly lately, and even if I didn't get kidnapped, attacked, or meet mysterious strangers I didn't think the others would look favorably on it. So I waited patiently for them to finish talking and split to do their own things.

"Maybe I'll have a look around the town a bit. Captain Karol, could you look after our troublemaker for us?"

"Who, me?" Karol and I asked at the same time.

"Yeah! We can't even leave you alone for a minute without something happening!" Rita pointed a finger at me. "And the runt should make himself useful trying to keep you from doing anything else stupid."

"Urgh..." While we were both trying to think of what to say to defend ourselves, Yuri and Rita turned and left in separate directions. I sighed and looked down at Karol. "Wanna help me check to see if there's any shops that can open Sophia's case?"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that." The little Ace and I went off to search for the business district.

x x x

Several stops later, we still hadn't had any luck. Several shop keepers had been willing to take a crack at the case but none had any success figuring out how to open it. A few tested it to see if it could be cut, but that wood was much tougher than it had looked. I had to wonder how someone had managed to engrave Sophia's name into it in the first place.

One engineer had gotten a frightening gleam in his eye and started pulling various tools out of cubbies and shelves. When I doubtfully asked if they could open the case without damaging the notes, he'd looked at me in surprise and asked, "Oh, I thought the point was just to open it." I ran out of there, Karol on my heels.

The last shop was the most helpful by a small margin. The owner had examined every angle of the case before admitting defeat. What he told us was that there probably was a key of some sort, and that the easiest way to open the case would be to find that key.

"So much for that," I sighed. "I'm pretty sure I didn't see anything like a key in Ragou's mansion, either."

"So why did that man have you steal it in the first place? It can't be worth anything to anyone if no one can open it." I shrugged, stumped.

"He didn't mention a key. Maybe he didn't know either. So whatever Alastor's planning, turns out the joke's on him..." I said his name with extra bitterness.

When no one was paying attention to me, I had taken the chance to make sure all my stuff was still in my bag. Nearly all of my possessions from Earth were still there, but a quick inventory showed that my wallet was missing. _BASTARD, is THAT what he meant? As suspicious as it will look if anyone finds this stuff, I _don't_ want anything just floating around Terca Lumireis on it's own. And my wallet had Earth money, credit card, and even my student ID. My name was on those cards..._

An uneasy thought occurred to me as Karol and I were walking back to the inn. If it was Alastor who took the wallet (and I was pretty sure he did, if it were one of the Blood Alliance thugs then everything would have been taken) then that meant the fairies now had my real name. Pretending to be Letha Vitae would have gone to waste, I might as well have introduced myself to Ludwig as...

_Huh?_ I pulled up short for a minute and Karol stopped to look at me in confusion. I shook my head at him and started walking again._ ...That's weird. I can't seem to remember my real name._ With a growing sense of panic, I began desperately trying to remember._ No, I can't even remember the names of anyone in my family! Even my friends!_ I could remember their faces (as well as I remember anyone's faces, I had a terrible recall) and lots of things we'd done together, but everyone's names were escaping me.

"_The name 'forgetfulness' seems to suit you quite well, hmm?"_ Did that mean Alastor already knew? Could he have taken my wallet so I wouldn't see my own name? What else was I forgetting? I tried another tact, running through the events of Tales of Vesperia. Other than a few rough spots here and there (mostly near the end where larger events get muddled by the multitude of available side quests) I could remember the whole plot (as well as someone who'd only seen a playthrough could).

_Dammit, what is going on?_ The rest of the walk I spent deep in my own mind, testing my memory by internally reciting the lyrics to all the songs I knew. I was half way through the slightly difficult german lyrics of "Mein Herz Brennt" from the band Rammstein when I tuned back in at hearing Estelle's name (or since it was Rita talking, I heard "Estellise").

"She seems to be asleep already," Yuri answered the question I had missed, while handing money for our rooms over to the desk attendant. Two rooms again: one for boys, one for girls. Like hell would they let me have a room to myself. _I feel like I've been grounded, though it's probably more for the sake of saving money...gald._ "We can still talk tomorrow."

So we all turned in for the night. Estelle apparently had been given a different room already by the nights, so it was just Rita and me in the girls' room. I kept tossing and turning in my bed, and my mind was occupied trying to remember songs, books I'd read, ideas I'd been working on writing or wanted to paint, or funny things I'd done with people. Eventually Rita snapped at me to go to sleep or go somewhere else so that she could.

Figuring I'd be safe from mysterious manipulators and fairy abductors in the courtyard behind the inn, I ducked out the back door. It wasn't anything very special, mostly just a place where they kept supplies where they wouldn't be underfoot. I found a corner to sit in and picked up a piece of cloth that was lying nearby. Probably torn off someone's clothes while moving things or something.

Sitting in my out of the way corner, I began singing to myself softly while picking at loose threads in the cloth. Next on my internal playlist was "Stray Child" from the .hack anime.

"_If you are lost in your way_

_deep in an awesome story_

_don't be in doubt and stray_

_cling to your lonesome folly_

_Now you're too close to the pain_

_let all the rain go further_

_come back and kiss me vain_

_Mother oh do not bother_

_Hear the chorus of pain_

_taking you back to proper ways_

_it's so easy to find_

_if you could remind me_

_Now you are lost in your way_

_deep in an awesome story_

_so I will find you again_

_kiss you for lonesome folly."_

"Singing again?" The sudden voice made me jump, and my neck snapped around to see Yuri leaning against a nearby wall.

"I told you already, I don't sing."

"You sang back in the Shaikos Ruins."

"We established that that was a ghost. Or a monster. Or you were hearing things." I was blushing furiously, and Yuri smirked. "How long have you been there?"

"Came in when you were saying something about a painful chorus."

"Ah, I still don't have that part quite right, but the rest is okay..." The threads I'd pulled from the scrap were forming a small pile on my lap. "I came out because I was keeping Rita up..."

"Karol told me you couldn't find anyone who could open your aunt's notes." It took a moment before I nodded mutely. I'd actually forgotten about that already. Ugh, forgetting things had never bothered me nearly this much before. _Should I keep a diary? I suck at those..._

"Something else on your mind?"

I nodded again, but didn't say anything.

After a few moments, he gave an exasperated sigh. "Letha, why do you still think you can't tell us anything? Even if you don't think we can help, you don't have to suffer alone." I looked up in surprise. "Not talking about it will just hurt you more. When we first met you I thought you might have been another of our pursuers." _I was right..._ "Back in Nor Harbor I even asked Flynn if he recognized you from the castle, though he told me he'd never met you before." _So it probably was because of Yuri that Flynn wanted to talk to me_.

"Then you kept getting sick and trying to hide it from us. If we'd known, we would have tried to do something about it." _Except even I didn't know what was wrong, and was afraid about explaining it if it had to do with Earth_. "Then everything with that Alastor guy...and whatever you're hiding right now." After his speech listing every one of my suspicious aspects we were left with a rather painful silence.

"Yuri..." I started, then hesitated.

"Sure everyone has a few secrets, but is it so bad to ask your friends for help?"

Gosh darnit, that actually made my eyes water a bit. I rubbed my wrist across them before I could actually start crying. _I'm such a sap, a fool, and an idiot. I can't listen to a speech like that-from Yuri of all people!-and not tell him something!_ But what was I safe to say? I opened my mouth, and it began shaping words without me thinking about them.

"_Lacrimosa dies illa_

_Qua resurget ex favilla_

_Judicandus homo reus_

_Huic ergo parce Deus_

_Pie Jesu domine_

_Judicandus homo reus_

_Huic ergo parce Deus_

_Pie Jesu domine."_

It was a song I'd picked up from the D. Grayman anime, which had been obviously based on Mozart's Requiem "Lacrimosa." When I stopped singing, there was a moment of stunned silence.

"What...what was that? I didn't recognize that language at all."

"A song written in a dead language. Something I happen to remember." I sighed and continued shredding my scrap of cloth. There was barely even a ribbon of it left. "Ludwig adopted me."

He looked at me, probably surprised that this was my big secret. _Ha, this barely even scratches it._ "He found me and took me in. I couldn't remember who I was, where I was from, or how I'd gotten there. So he named me Letha Vitae and called me his niece." I shrugged.

"It's not like I've forgotten everything from my life before, I remember songs and you wouldn't believe how many stories. I vaguely remember people. I had a good family... But I don't know enough to find my way home." Other than exaggerating some facts, this was all mostly true. Given time, it was possible I'd forget even more of my real life and lies would become truth...

"You were adopted...what about the mark on your hand?"

"That really happened," I lied. "Ludwig found me not long before Sophia died. Another reason I'm searching is on the off chance that it's connected to my home, or if I'll just stumble across my real family on accident." An oddly truthful conclusion. This was going to give me a migraine...

"So you've probably been out here moping about whether that Alastor guy is connected to your real home."

"Yeah...or if he's the reason I was taken away, and can't remember anymore."

"Well then that's easy." The sudden light tone made me look back up from my pile of threads. "Next time he shows up, we beat some answers out of him." Yuri reached out a hand to help pull me to my feet. I smiled and accepted the help.

"...Thanks Yuri. I owe you, even just for listening." I shuffled my feet awkwardly. "I don't suppose I have the right to ask this, but is it possible not to let the others know about this? Letha may not be my real name, and Ludwig may not be my real uncle, but I like both enough to want to stay as Letha Vitae. For now."

"Sure, as long as it isn't causing problems again, I don't think there's anything wrong with that." He gave me a stern look. "But if it seems like it's important for them to know, you better speak up before I decide to tell them."

"Thanks, I will." Then as we were walking back into the inn, "Hey, maybe someday I'll even tell you what that song means."

x x x

Yeaaaah, lies that keep getting more elaborate yet closer to the truth! Actually, I thought that would come in later in the story, but it seemed right...

If Letha ever gets around to just telling the truth without any lies, does anyone think Yuri and the others will believe her anymore?


	17. Chapter 17: Sleep Talk and Introspection

Seeing how many hits I got yesterday, I have the slightly guilty/slightly ecstatic feeling that people have been checking back in for the next chapter...Or I'm suddenly getting much more popular.

Rhino600:

Thank you! You have apparently moved higher on the imaginary list of addicted readers. It will probably be a while coming, but I'm not done throwing twists into Letha's real and cover stories. I will, however, be easing back a bit for awhile because there's actual plot that needs to be done. I'll try to make sure it's as interesting as all my original developments for everyone who has played the game already.

x x x

Chapter 17: Sleep Talk and Introspection

x x x

"Well you girls are up early."

"Woah! What happened to you?"

"Ugh...Rita had a dream that she was fighting a monster...and she cast Champagne." I was sitting on the step at the inn's back door, wringing water out of my long sleeved black shirt. Everything I bought in Nor Harbor had been soaked, so I was dressed in my Earth clothes again. "At least it wasn't Fireball."

"Would you let it go already? I said sorry!" Together we had hung up all the blankets and sheets that the mage had doused in her sleep. Rita was putting up another line to hang our own clothes from while trying to make sure her researcher's robe from Aspio covered her properly. She hadn't cared enough about appearances to carry a spare set of clothes with her, and was probably regretting that. At least I'd given her my vest to wear buttoned up under the robe.

Karol commented that he'd been hearing a strange noise for awhile, and one of the inn workers (who was still a bit ticked about Rita's sleep casting) told us it was the barrier blastia acting up. Rita dropped the blanket she'd been holding and started to run towards the door. Fortunately Yuri stopped her before she got far.

"Hey, hold your horses!"

"I can't!" Rita seemed to have even forgotten how she was dressed in her anxiety for the blastia.

"Commandant Alexei is there, isn't he? He should be able to take care of it."

"Rita, if we let you go out on your own, it'll just be another repeat of Ehmead Hill," Karol admonished, clearly enjoying the chance to chastise the hot tempered mage. She looked like she wanted to hit him, but for once had to accept that he was in the right.

"Well, if you want, we could at least let Flynn know about it." Older Brother Yuri soothed her. _Come to think of it, Yuri is actually younger than both of my brothers. My brothers...whose names I can't remember._ I began to brood again, feeling very alone now that I'd discovered these holes in my memories.

My brothers both had very good senses of humor, I especially loved joking around with my oldest brother. There were some occasions where something I said even made him pat me on the head and tell me how proud he was. Like when he heard about my Halloween costume one year, a hodgepodge of colorful robes (grandma brought them back from one of her international trips), feathered mask, and chains of gold jewelry. When asked what I was supposed to be, I said I was "eye-catching."

Thinking back on home, I hardly even noticed the others until Rita shoved my denim vest back into my hands. "Stop dreaming already, we're leaving now!" _Huh?_ Apparently Rita had employed a controlled fireball in order to dry off her own clothes (mostly) and got dressed again. Not even wet clothes would keep her from a blastia, but she hadn't bothered drying any of my clothes and had singed some of the blankets in her impatience. I sighed and put my vest on again as I followed the others to look for Flynn. Though Rita still insisted on stopping by the blastia on the way for a quick check, so that was where Estelle found us.

While the others convinced Rita to have just a _little_ faith in the knights own handiwork with the blastia, and agreed to let Estelle tag along for a little while longer, I thought about upcoming events. _Despite the "repairs" the knights did, the blastia still becomes unstable and goes berserk. ...Or could it be because of the knights? Alexei's here after all, maybe he ordered them to tamper with it a bit. I don't know what he'd expect to accomplish with that, but it seems like too much of a coincidence._

_...It's gonna suck isn't it? I remember people nearby suffered from aer sickness, and I get that worse than anyone else. I'll have to try and keep my distance, there isn't anything I'll be able to do to help anyway_. I looked up at the towering blastia. _...It does look kind of cool, like abstract art. All twisty...and I think I see what Rita calls formulas shining inside..._

Yuri gave me a little nudge to get my attention, and I fell in line with the group back on its way to pay Flynn a visit. I felt uncomfortable inside the knights' headquarters, and only slightly more at ease once we reached Flynn's office. Maybe it was a temporary office while he was in the city...

When we got there...Flynn had a confused and troubled look on his face while trying to deal with an intruder. A man with blue hair that flipped up away from his face, red and white apron, white chef's hat, oversized frying pan on his back...

"Oh, Wonder Chef!"

"Letha, you know the Wonder Chef too?"

"Yeah, Uncle Ludwig and I found him in our house one day. We were wondering where the carved wooden duck had come from, and then _poof!_ there he was. What about you guys?"

"Met him the first time we were in Aspio, just before we met you in the Shaikos Ruins."

"If you're all acquainted with this...man...could you please do something about removing him?" Poor Flynn seemed at a loss. The Wonder Chef huffed and began gesturing wildly at us.

"Can you believe this man? He says he won't let me teach him any recipes! Instead he _insists_ that he must _work!_" It sounded like Wonder Chef considered actual work to be something obscene or even blasphemous...

"What did you want to teach him to cook?" Estelle asked politely.

Wonder Chef straightened and stood with his chest puffed out proudly. "A recipe I have perfected after years of experimentation and trials, Fish with Miso Sauce." I couldn't hide my slight gag, and he glared at me. "You! Do you have a problem with my cooking as well?"

"No! No, that's not it!" I quickly protested. "I just had some fish when I was kid that made me sick, and since then I can't bear to eat any sea food. Even the thought makes me a bit nauseous." _I'd have to be pretty desperate to eat fish_.

"What! How can it be possible to dislike any food! I shall rehabilitate you and introduce you to the wonders of sea food dishes!" So saying Wonder Chef grabbed my arm and tried to lead me off.

I frantically tried to pull away and gave the others the most desperate look they'd probably ever seen from me. "GUYS! HELP ME OR I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL NEVER FORGIVE ANY OF YOU!" After a period of confusion and my panicked shouting, the situation was sorted out when Flynn actually ordered Sodia to go attend the Wonder Chef's cooking lesson. She agreed as crime preventive measures: preventing me from doing serious physical harm to the Wonder Chef.

"Oh thank God," I sighed in relief once he was gone. I stood by the window in the back of the office, watching the dark gray clouds going by while contemplating the close shave. The others left me to calm down on my own while they talked about the barrier blastia. Which Flynn was refusing to allow Rita near.

Suddenly there was a sound of an explosion somewhere outside, and the whole building shook. Dust even fell from the walls and ceiling.

"What was that vibration?" Yuri looked to Flynn.

The knight looked troubled, "Don't tell me that was the blastia..." "Blastia" had barely left his mouth before Rita was sprinting back out the door. Estelle watched her leave with her hand delicately over her mouth before Flynn's words seemed to register.

"Maybe something's happened to the blastia!"

"Let's get outta here!" Yuri and Repede led the charge after the blastia crazed mage. Flynn turned and stopped Estelle before she could follow.

"Your Highness, you must stay here!"

Karol and I looked at each other (Me: "I dun wanna go!" Karol: "I don't either but I don't want them to think I'm a coward!"), and then followed the knight out the door. I'd barely put a foot outside before I felt a terrible pressure in my chest and breathing became painful. _Ugh, so much aer..._ I somehow managed to follow the others closer to the blastia, so I could see it glowing a bright and angry orange.

I stopped further back down the street, hoping I was far enough away to keep from passing out while I watched. Yuri had caught Rita at the end of the street, where she was about twenty feet from the blastia.

"Rita...!"

"Let me go! I can't just leave him like this!" She tugged at Yuri's grip, trying to pull away and reach the blastia. "The aer is just pouring out of this thing! At this density it might kill someone!" Rita's words were starting to sound oddly muffled...

"And what about you?"

A shockwave of aer blew Yuri back, and Rita crawled forward towards the blastia. That was all I could hold on for. I thought I had stayed far enough away, but the pressure from the aer kept building. Rita reaching the blastia and opening that weird magical monitor thing they all seem to have was the last thing I saw.

x x x

_Mmm? It hurts less..._ My eyes slid open._ There are people running around everywhere... My back feels cold._ My groggy mind eventually identified the hard surface at my back as a wall._ Someone moved me to a wall...so I'm outta the way..._ A person wearing red, black, and well polished armor stopped near me. I slowly lifted my head to look up at him._ Hmmm? Gray hair...almost white...Alexei?_ He was talking to someone else, not paying attention to me.

_Haa, his back is open. ...A lot of trouble could be avoided...if he died now._ One hand drifted slowly to a dagger on my belt._ If I got up and attacked now...I'd probably get him by surprise._ I thought about this for awhile, my semi-functioning brain creating a path of logic I wouldn't be able to follow again once coherent.

"_If you died now, we won't have to suffer. But if it's not you, then another will."_ _Hmm, Alexei looked down at me in surprise. Did he just realize an unconscious girl is sleeping at his feet? "Zaude is a fool's dream, and the world has no lack of fools..." Alexei's talking again, but he's still watching me sleep._

_Oh wait, I'm not asleep yet,_ my eyes slid closed_, though I will be soon..._

x x x

I woke up for real in a soft bed. Nearby I could hear voices speaking softly.

"I can't believe she had to go and do something like that."

"Yes. Once Rita chooses to do something, she won't listen to anyone else..." Ah, Yuri and Estelle were talking to each other. I remembered this scene from the game. The barrier blastia nearly exploded but was stopped in the nick of time by Rita and Estelle's joint effort. Rita collapses and is tended to by the equally exhausted princess at the inn.

I tried not to eavesdrop on what they were saying (even though I pretty much knew the gist already), but there wasn't anything to distract me.

"You're one to talk! You were just as bad as she was."

"...I'm sorry."

The sound of someone walking a few steps. I judged from the sound of the boots that it was probably Yuri. "I'm going to stay here. You should go rest. Aren't you tired from using your healing artes so much?"

"I'm jealous of Rita. She has something she cares about so much..."

"And so can you, if you spend enough time looking for it. But you need to go and get some sleep now."

"No, I'm fine. Yuri, you should get some sleep, yourself."

"Flynn will get mad at me if you pass out."

"So let him get mad at you."

A very heavy sigh, definitely sounded like Yuri. He started walking away, towards the door, but stopped. "Look, don't come asking me to take your place when you collapse from exhaustion!"

"I can't ask you to take my place if I've already collapsed, can I?" _Haha, nice Estelle. Your wit seems to be particularly sharp for some reason_.

Another small sigh. Poor Yuri, the princess is throwing him for a loop, Rita went and did something stupid, and I just became a piece of dead weight when things got bad. I heard his footsteps again, and then the door opening and closing.

_...Yuri has to be strong in situations like this. Estelle is naïve and inexperienced, overreaching herself because of her need to help others. Rita's anger can get in the way of her judgment, and her love of blastia is equal to Estelle's need to help others. Both could quite possibly die because of how strongly they feel. Karol is the youngest, and it's understandable that he's frightened. The fact that he's hanging in there is pretty impressive already. I'm trying my best, but if I keep moping then even my best won't amount to much compared to them._

_I need to pull my own act together_.

There was a soft sounding thump nearby. I opened my eyes and turned my head to look over at the bed Rita was sleeping in. Sure enough, Estelle had slumped over and fallen asleep while sitting at the edge. I quietly slipped out of my bed and gently draped my blanket over the pink haired girl. _Eighteen, and Rita's fifteen... They're so young to be risking their lives, but this world forces you to be responsible at a young age._

Estelle sighed a little in her sleep. I smiled, and went to sit out on the (ridiculously huge) balcony. My body felt sore in several places, probably from the overflow of aer earlier. _Judith will come here... Eventually she'll join the group. Before that, Raven will come and go a few times. They're responsible enough, even if they come with their own sets of troubles. But it won't hurt if I try to act my age and be an adult._

_But it's not like I can just stop feeling homesick. _I had idly grabbed my bag, and now I fished through it until I found my mp3 player. For caution's sake, I dropped it down the front of my shirt to hide it and made sure the wires for the headphones were concealed by my clothes and hair. As further precaution, I moved to the very edge of the corner where I was mostly hidden by a pillar, a blind spot to most of the rest of the room.

The player was set to random selection. I skipped a few songs and arbitrarily left it on one. "Akatsuki no Kuruma" by Fiction was a wonderful song, and I'd always meant to try and learn the Japanese words and what the translation meant. Mostly all I remembered from looking it up online was that it was about singing in grief for someone who had been lost, and mentioned a carriage of the dawn and orange petals. Though the image in my own head was always a tree's silhouette in a sunset.

I barely heard Rita's voice over the last verse. _Ah, she's awake, and Yuri must be coming back to check on us all again_. I paused the player, listening in case I needed to hide it in a hurry, but reluctant to risk drawing attention to myself while it was still out.

"Glad to see you're awake." A brief pause. "Letha's not here...so she woke up too?" I slowly eased the ear buds out and down the collar of my shirt.

"She was already gone when I woke up."

"Karol didn't say he saw her leave at all... Hm?" I closed my eyes and tried to relax my body posture naturally. I'm pretty good at faking sleep.

Yuri's foot steps...I was going to be a master at identifying their particular sound before long. "Huh, here she is. Asleep again."

"Hmph, making us worry over nothing, she's a real pain."

"Oh, you were worried about her just now?"

"I never said that!" I kept my expression natural, but I wanted to smile. _Rita might not like me much, but she's a nice person. She says she only cares about blastia, but she's just awkward around people_.

Again the sound of Yuri walking, back in the direction of the beds again. I opened my eyes again and watched the rain that had begun falling as I listened. "...And after I told her over and over to call me before she collapses."

"You didn't think she'd really listen to you, did you?" Estelle murmured a little in her sleep. There was a moment of silence, as if they were waiting to see if she'd wake up. Then the short tempered little mage actually _giggled_. "She looks happy." Another pause. "Hey so...what do you think Estellise thinks of me?" A rustling sound of someone moving, and, "Why are you making that face?" _Probably a "who are you and what have you done with Rita" type of face..._

"I just didn't think you were the kind of person who cared what other people thought."

"F-forget it. You can go now."

"Compared to those formulas of yours, she should be easy to figure out."

And Estelle finally woke up (amazingly perfect timing), and promptly threw herself on the recovered mage while exclaiming happily. "You're awake!" Then the slight ringing sound of her using her healing artes. _Hmm? I see a slightly different shade of blue gray moving through the clouds._ "But be careful! It's just when you think you've recovered that you're in the most danger."

_Ah, here comes an important part_.

"It's all right, I'm fine. Also, you don't need to pretend to be using that blastia anymore."

"I... What do you mean?" _You're terrible at keeping secrets princess. And I think I recognize that blue gray spot_

"It's pretty cool that you can use healing artes without a blastia." _And Yuri's like a freakin' lie detector_.

"B-but how did you...?"

And then Ba'ul the steroid dolphin dropped down out of the sky and stopped directly in front of the open balcony. I looked up at him and knight-in-shining-white-armor Judith passively. "No blastia to see here, move along now."

"What the?" The screech of Yuri's sword leaving its scabbard.

"Hey, it's that dragon freak!"

Ba'ul shot a blast of fire at us, but I couldn't tell if it was in response to Yuri running forward towards them or the other way around. But by the time the swordsman recovered from defending himself, Ba'ul had already begun flying away.

The door slammed open and I heard Karol shouting. "It sounds like the sky's falling in here. What's going on? ...Huh?" Ba'ul and Judith made one last pass by the balcony before swooping up and away. "Aaaah!"

"Haha, priceless..." I murmured. My eyes slipped shut again. What was this? I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something important, something bad...

"W-What was that thing?"

"Just when the conversation was getting interesting." Rita sulked a little.

"That's enough talk about Estelle's healing artes for now."

"Fine by me. I've pretty much figured it out anyway."

"Don't look at me like that. Do I really look like that much of a bad guy to you?"

"Do you really want us to answer that?" I called back, stretching my arms and forcing my aching muscles to let me stand up. I'd managed to move my mp3 player back into my bag, and hopefully no one would develop an interest to see what I like carrying around in there any time in the future.

Yuri turned and glanced at me as I walked up to join the group. "Just how long were you planning to sleep anyway? You didn't even react when that dragon attacked."

I shrugged, "That barely qualified as an attack. More like an unexpected 'hello'." I massaged the back of my neck with a hand. "Though even if s-he really meant to hurt us, I don't think I would have been able to do anything in time. Still kinda achey from the aer sickness earlier..."

"You doing okay? You were passed out longer than last time."

"Yeah, and I'll work the kinks out once we walk around a bit."

"Then let's go."

x x x

We spent the rest of the afternoon restocking supplies and seeing how the town was doing after the close shave earlier. Wanting to make sure we were all (especially the princess) well rested we then checked in for another night and slept. Estelle shared a room with Rita and me, and I made sure Estelle's bed was between me and the mage.

I was the last one up the next morning (no longer dressed in my Earth clothes, the others had long sice dried), and everyone was already waiting outside. When I came out the inn's door, the rest of the group had just decided to go drop Estelle off with Flynn for her escort back to Zaphias. The princess looked around at us with some uncertainty. "U-um, what are all you going to do after this?"

Yuri rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he considered the next move. "Hmm. Well we did lose track of the Blood Alliance..."

Karol looked up at him eagerly, "That's easy, we can just go to Dahn...grest," his face fell. "Or not." He looked down and scuffed his feet. "Man, if I go back there now, they'll all just laugh at me..."

"Dahngrest? That's the guild city, right?"

He looked up again. "Y-yeah. I thought we could find out about the Blood Alliance there..."

"That's some pretty good thinking," I folded my arms behind my head.

Yuri nodded and asked Karol about directions. Which I didn't pay attention to. _What am I forgetting... I'm pretty sure I know all the major plot developments that happen here, so I don't know what's bugging me._

"Let's check it out then. Might be helpful for anybody thinking of starting a guild, too." _Yuri knows how to play people, doesn't he. Scam artist. Good things he's serving the side of happiness and justice._

"Huh? For starting a guild?" Karol of course perked up just as one would expect. "Well let's go, then!" Then he spun over to look at me, still nearly bouncing with new excitement. "Hey Letha, you're coming with us right?"

I shrugged and nodded. "Sure thing. Besides, none of you have given me the okay to wander off on my own again."

Rita stood by, observing us quietly.

So we went to wait for Flynn near the barrier blastia, apparently where he'd told the others he'd be waiting for Estelle. He wasn't there (I knew he wouldn't be), and I found a spot as far away from the blastia as I could be. Rita and Estelle may have tamed the savage beast of ancient technology, but I didn't trust it entirely to not start spitting aer at me just to make my day worse.

"It doesn't seem like that Flynn character is around here." If I weren't busy giving the blastia dirty looks, I'd be trying not to laugh about Rita using the term "character."

"Does that mean you're staying with us for now?" Karol looked to Estelle hopefully.

"Well, I... Would that be all right?" The princess looked unsure of herself, hands clasped and fidgeting very slightly.

"Karol, don't fill the princess' head with ideas." _Don't you use that tone, Yuri. You leave the decision up to her, but whenever she's wavering you always give her advice that subtly pushes her to keep traveling_.

"You cannot simply do as you wish. Your Highness must return to the capital." Alexei's deep voice came from the other side of the blastia as the Commandant showed up out of nowhere. _Woah, secretly a ninja._ Seeing him sent cold shivers down my spine. _Huh, funny. Can't just be because I know what he's up to. Didn't bother me so much last time I saw him_.

Alexei stopped in front of us as he continued to address the princess. "Flynn has already set out to tend to other business." _...You don't want Estelle with him, do you Commandant?_ He turned and walked across the square with the manner of a drill sergeant. "Now then, Rita Mordio," he stopped in front of the mage, "we would like you to investigate yesterday's blastia malfunction."

"...That's pointless. I looked at him this morning but I couldn't figure anything out."

"No, we would ask that you go to the forest of Keiv Moc." _Is he using the royal we?_

Karol looked downwards as he mentally matched name to place. "...Keiv Moc, huh? Oh yeah, the plants affected by the disaster here look just like the ones in the forest." He looked back to us, and the Commandant stood by as the boy explained.

"We have reports of tree mutations and of monsters increasing in both numbers and aggressiveness. Messengers have gone to the capital, but much time will be wasted finding a gifted mage."

"I specialize in blastia. Plants are out of my league." _Not even a Commandant can boss Rita around if she doesn't want to listen._

"Consider their connection to the aer. I imagine that is within your league." _Compliment, patronizing almost-insult, or both?_ A new thought struck me._ ...No, it's none of those. He's a man who knows how to use his resources most efficiently, just like any good organization needs on top. That's why he's so impressive._

"Besides...I... If Estelle is going back to the capital, I want to go with her." And there was the moment Rita first calls Estelle, well, Estelle. It was likely also the moment she first accepted that the pink haired girl was more than just a clue to an obscure formula theory.

"What do you mean?" Estelle looked from the mage to Alexei, green eyes wide with surprise.

"You are a researcher in an imperial blastia laboratory. You must undertake the tasks assigned to you." _He sounds annoyed that she isn't just jumping to do his bidding. But he still expects to get his way in the end_.

Estelle rushed up and tried to soothe them both with a "reasonable" compromise. "Um...then there should be no problem if I accompany her to the forest, right?" _NOT right! There's plenty of reasons Alexei wouldn't agree to that, and some of them are VERY reasonable! PRINCESS_.

"Princess, please do not make suggestions that are simply out of the question." Alexei shot her down. _She's getting shunted off to the side. They all just try to herd her around without letting her learn anything about thinking for herself. I'm glad she met Yuri back at the castle, or she might never have had a chance to spread her wings and actually grow into a competent woman_. I probably sounded like I kept flipping between sides...

"If this does have something to do with aer, then my healing artes would prove useful." _Thinking for herself like she is now._

"Yes, they would..." _and you know it. ...Maybe you're also seeing it as useful for her to be out using her power more. Dammit, Alexei wins either way..._

"Please Alexei! Let me do my part to help."

"Your Highness, I simply cannot you to go to such a dangerous forest." Alexei was still firm in his decision, despite the new tempting reasons to let her go that must have occurred to him.

"Well, what if..." she turned to look back at the idly listening swordsman. "Yuri, would you come with us?"

He straightened a bit and looked back at her. "Me?"

Estelle returned her attention to Alexei. "If Yuri were to come, you wouldn't be worried right?"

He considered, probably making mental calculations and adjustments to his master plans, before turning his attention to Yuri. "Young man, please escort the princess. I ask this of you only because you once sought to join the Imperial Knights." _That's not the tone of someone asking, it's the tone of someone giving an order._

That wasn't lost on any of the others, and certainly not on Yuri. "...Of all the underhanded... I didn't ask anybody to count on me." _You might not ask for it, but the really dependable ones rarely do._ "Your pushing me into this." He turned away as he growled.

"It seems I can take that reply as indication of your agreement." Alexei sounded satisfied and a touch smug.

"But there's something I have to do as well. We go to the forest after Dahngrest."

"Very well." _Now Alexei turns and leaves...why isn't he leaving?_ Instead, the Commandant had turned to look at _me_. "Letha Vitae." _Snap, not good_. "I would like to speak with you in private, about the matter you mentioned during the difficulty with the blastia.

While I impersonated a fish in a bowl, the others looked from Alexei to me in surprise. "What? But Letha was unconscious at the time, from the aer sickness." Estelle was the only one who could outright question the Commandant.

A vague, almost memory was surfacing in my mind, and I started to guess where my nagging feeling of _bad_ had been coming from. "Uh, you can ignore anything I said then. I've been known to say some strange things when just waking up. Once I was even convinced I was a dowager queen."

"Nevertheless, I would ask that you accompany me."

_...Alright, I don't care how presumptuous I sound, I am _not_ going to let him isolate me from any help. _"There's really no reason I should do what you tell me to."

"What? You are refusing a request from an officer of the Imperial Knights?"

"See, the thing is, I'm not a citizen of the empire." I held myself tall and confident. For short periods of time, I can bluff. Stared down my health teacher once and he looked away first. He never even realized how jittery I'd been inside. "I grew up without living under the empire's 'protection' or laws. I have no obligation to your empire at all. So if you please, I've already made plans to go to Dahngrest with the others. The sooner you let us be, the sooner we can get around to that research you want done."

He stared at me, and I felt like I was waiting for him to give the order for a firing squad to shoot me. I wasn't sure how long I could keep the strong, self assured pose, or if he could read the underlying fear. But finally he nodded and said, "If that is the case, then that will be all." I waited until he had left before falling weakly to my knees.

"What was that all about?" Yuri asked me, probably wondering what I could have possibly said that would interest the Commandant. And wondering how crazy I was to essentially say "screw you and your government" to his face like that.

"I'm not really sure, I just figured I already have enough on my plate without getting involved in imperial matters." _Though depending on whatever I said to him before, he might come back and try again. And now that he knows I'll actually stand up to him, he'll try to get me when I'm alone._

x x x

It just kept going, and people just kept talking, and Letha just kept _listening_ so I couldn't cut any more dialogue out! I hope this chapter didn't bore anyone to death...


	18. Chapter 18: Story Time and a Secret Talk

Sorry the update took longer than usual. Needed a break from writing on Saturday, in a car all day on Sunday, back in classes after a short Thanksgiving break, and then got absorbed teaching my roommate to play Final Fantasy XII. She has trouble understanding the map. Though she thinks the graphics are pretty and agrees with me that Vayne is a manipulative posturing bastard (What was the term she used? Faggot, I think.) and the main character isn't cute enough.

Rhino600: Addiction level Rising! If I was really arrogant I'd try to make that into a clichéd "it's over 9000" joke. Addiction level probably isn't that high yet...working on it. Let's see if this chapter doesn't give you even more reasons to look forward to future chapters.

x x x

Chapter 18: Story Time and a Secret Talk

x x x

The way to Dahngrest was mostly through a forest, which meant we were slowed down a lot by trees. And slowed down even further by monsters which we didn't see coming because of all the vegetation in the way. I amused myself by naming the giant monster turtles we fought. "The last ones were Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. So this one is named Donatello!"

"Just where are you getting these names from?"

"They, uh, just sound right!"

"What about that one behind you?" Yuri asked casually while cutting down a feathered lizard thing.

"Wha-shit! _Pierce!"_ I stabbed both daggers through the leathery skin of a giant turtle that had been about to bite my shoulder. "Tell me about these things sooner, Yuri!"

A few minutes later I posed triumphantly with a boot on the turtle's head. It was the first time I'd landed the killing blow on one of the big beasties. I had tried out a combination of Pierce and Afterimage (Piercing Afterimage, I didn't try too hard with that name) by slashing with the dao in my right hand and stabbing with the dagger in my left.

"I shalt name thee, Tortuga!" Having run out of mutated turtle ninjas to name it after, I'd chosen the stuffed turtle plushie my roommate used as a pillow. I think it was Spanish, but she assured me it meant "turtle."

"Tor...tuga?" Karol looked at the turtle under my foot, "Somehow that seems different from your other names."

"Yes, I haven't heard of a name like that before either. Not even in any of the castle's books."

"You just made that one up, didn't you?"

"I swear on my braid," I tugged the plaited brown hair hanging in front of my ear, "I did not."

"...You just keep getting weirder."

"Thank you." I beamed at Rita. She just spun away and moved ahead to walk with Estelle. Yuri was at the head of the group (probably smirking,) with Repede trotting a little ahead to sniff out any monsters trying to ambush us. Karol walked a bit ahead of me, looking around as if afraid a monster would attack us from behind any moment.

I stared at the ground as I walked, trying not to trip over roots or half buried rocks in the forest floor, and let my mind wander. Apparently I zoned out enough that I missed it when everyone else started a conversation.

"Hey Letha, you're quiet today."

"I like being quiet. It keeps people from hearing all the insane thoughts going through my head." I looked up at the sky, "Come to think of it, I tend to sneak up on people without even meaning to. Or they'll think I'm not even in the room sometimes and accidentally step on my feet."

"Yeah, you could fall down a hole or wander off again and we wouldn't even notice you were gone." Yuri had a serious face, but his voice had that somewhat flippant tone it often had when he was trying to scare Karol. "Then you'd get lost and wander around these woods for days while fighting monsters all alone."

"That's terrible! Letha, talk more so you don't get separated!" _Someone _wants_ me to talk _more_. Only my teachers ever say that_.

I scratched my head a bit, "Well, that's a shame, it sounded like an adventure. But if you want me to talk, I could tell a story."

Estelle perked up and Karol looked at me curiously, "What kind of story?"

Considering, I looked up at the trees above me. "Mmm, how about 'The Boy Who Drew Cats'? It's a fairy tale I remember hearing when I was younger." When I was in elementary school my art teacher would play music and tapes of people reading stories while we worked. It had irritated me that class had ended before that particular tape had ended, so I had remembered it years later and looked it up on the internet. I snorted quietly, there'd been a boy in that class who would hiss and call me devil spawn. I would just laugh and return his insults with interest.

_...I used to remember his name._

"So how does it go?"

I shook my head slightly to clear the depressing thought and focus on the story. "Let's see..." Thinking quietly, I ran through the story's main points. "Long ago, in a far off land," _I think this story originated in Japan_, "there was a boy from a family of farmers. He was the youngest son, and not as strong as his older brothers, so he couldn't help his father in the field. Nor was he any good at chores, so he couldn't help his sisters and mother in the house. All he knew how to do, was draw cats.

"Wanting a future for their child, the boy's parents sent him to a temple to learn to be a priest. His mother gave him one piece of advice before he left. She said, 'You are a small child. Keep to small places, and you will be safe'."

"Safe from what?"

I shrugged at Karol, "She didn't know any danger in particular he'd have to be safe from. More like a piece of superstition or an old wives tale." I shrugged again. "It's a fairy tale, not everything has to make sense.

"Moving on with the story then. He was a bright child, so the priests were pleased by his progress in his studies. Except for one thing: he was always drawing cats. In the margins of scrolls he read, on clothes he was supposed to wash, everything. He just couldn't help himself.

I stopped again for a moment. "Umm, so one day the head priest went to talk to the boy. He said, 'I'm sorry my child, but we cannot keep you here any more. You'll have to return home'."

"Just because he liked to draw cats? That doesn't make sense."

"Well, Rita, imagine you found an important book about blastia but you couldn't read it because the pages were covered in doodles?"

"I'd kill the freak who did that!" I raised an eyebrow at her, "Okay, I get your point."

"Hmm. So, the boy was turned out, though the priests weren't cruel so they gave him enough money and food to get home. But the boy was too ashamed to return and tell his family that he'd failed. So instead he decided to go find another village, and join the temple there."

"Wait, what about monsters? Wouldn't it be too dangerous to travel alone?"

I shook my head at Yuri. "Nah, this was in a land where monsters were very uncommon. If you were careful and stayed on the roads you could usually travel safely. The villages didn't need barriers either, because attacks were rare." _Well, more or less. There were dangerous animals and bandits back then, but animals didn't actually seek humans out or attack villages unless they had no food left or felt threatened. Humans are a different story though_.

I sighed and looked up again. "That being said, when the boy reached the next village he discovered that it had been entirely abandoned. It looked like everyone had left, not even bringing anything with them, as if they'd been fleeing something.

"It was getting dark, so he decided to stay in the empty temple for the night. He found remains from an old fire, but he couldn't get it lit again. Looking at the left over sticks of burnt wood, he had an idea. Holding it like a pencil, he pulled it across the wall, and discovered the charcoal drew a thick, dark line. Until the rest of the daylight was gone, the boy happily drew cats over all the walls.

"When he couldn't see anymore, he lay down to go to sleep. But before he fell asleep he remembered his mother's words. 'You are small, keep to small places.' So he found a cupboard to sleep in."

"What? Why?"

I shrugged again. "Don't question plot devices, Ace."

"What are those?"

"Things that happen in order to move the story along." I looked around to see if anyone else had a question before continuing. "Right, so, in the middle of the night the boy woke up at the sound of something moving around in the main room he'd been in before. He was afraid to open the door to see what it was, but it sounded like something was sniffing around and coming closer to his cupboard." I noted how Rita had started to look a bit spooked.

"Shivering in fear, the boy sat and listened to the thing outside coming closer. Suddenly, there was the sound of rumbling growls and roars, followed by pained shrieks that didn't sound quite human." The tough mage gave a strangled squeak.

"Wh-what was that?" Karol looked around wildly, not realizing it had been Rita.

"Maybe that noise came from the same thing behind the door in Letha's story." I grinned at Yuri.

"R-really?"

"Of course not! It's just a story, it's not real!"

"You can't really know that when I haven't even told you what it was." Rita's mouth snapped shut and she paled slightly. "Uhh, where was I?"

"Growls and screams from outside the boy's cupboard." Estelle said eagerly.

"Riiight. So, the boy was even more terrified then before. Finally, the noises stopped and there was only silence. Eventually the boy fell asleep and didn't hear anything else for the rest of the night.

"In the morning he woke up and slowly opened the door. Outside, there was the mangled corpse of a terrible monster, a goblin. Nothing else about the room had changed, except the boy's cat drawings on the walls. Now their mouths were smeared red with blood."

"So the cats came to life and killed the monster, is that it?" Yuri clarified.

"That's what the story leads us to believe, yes."

"But that's not possible!"

"Plot device!" I reminded Rita. "And there's a little more.

"The boy had no way of knowing this, but the rat-like goblin had been terrorizing the village and had killed all the priests before everyone else ran away. When they found out the goblin had been killed the villagers would be free to return to their homes.

"As for the boy, he moved on and eventually made a living for himself as an artist. When he had a family of his own he drew pictures of cats to protect his son, as they had protected him."

"So the moral of the story is that no talents are useless, right?"

I nodded at the princess. "Something like that, and if you keep searching you'll find where you fit into the world. The boy's talent was drawing, so his calling in life was to become an artist."

"Huh. Not a bad story," Yuri said approvingly. _Right, he's had talks with Estelle about just this sort of thing._

"I bet the best part was that you didn't have to read the actual book." I said with a grin.

Karol laughed, "That sounds like Yuri alright!"

I smiled and looked around. Karol seemed to have liked the story, as had Estelle, though Rita looked rather pale still. Repede...well, he might have understood, but it _was_ a story starring cats. Yuri had a glint in his eye, and I figured he'd probably try to use the story to scare the younger kids with another prank.

'_Telling a story means you care, being told a story means you are cared for.'_ Whoever said that, I couldn't remember, but with my hopes to be a writer it had struck a chord in me. Moments like this made me feel good.

"Where'd you learn a story like that?" Estelle asked.

"Umm, my aunt had a large and interesting collection of books... When it comes to remembering facts like Estelle and Rita do, I'm not that great, but I always had a special love for stories like that one."

"Do you remember any more?"

"Loads, but..."

"Some other time," Yuri cut in as he tossed his sword sheath to the side to attack a screwed up looking fluffy green owl. "And I think you need to come up with another name." He nodded towards _another_ giant turtle that came crashing through the trees.

"Ummm, Ricardo!" _No reason at all..._

x x x

Later that night I walked further into the trees for a bit of privacy (and thank God the others were no longer insisting on knowing what I was doing every time). I picked my way through fairly easily thanks to a large and bright moon, trying to find a nice spot where I could feel decently alone without losing track of the campfire where Yuri was cooking dinner.

"You are surprisingly adept at lying."

"Eeep!" I _squeaked_ loudly (and wanted to die of embarrassment) and practically punched Nevi in the face at his sudden appearance.

"Letha? Are you alright?" I heard Estelle call.

"Fine! Fine, I just slipped on some wet leaves!" I called back.

"Which illustrates my point..." Nevi smirked. His pale blond hair seemed to gleam in the moonlight. _Damn it for actually looking pretty..._ Away with that thought!

"Har har. What do you want? Are you and your buddy Alastor taking turns screwing up my life so you can laugh at me?" Nevi stiffened and he grabbed me by the shoulders (he had to reach up a bit to do it).

"You met Alastor? When? _Where?_"

"A-a few days ago. Back in Nor Harbor, and then again when we were in Caer Bocram."

"What did he tell you?" the smaller fairy was staring me intently in the eyes, as if daring me to try and lie. It was unnerving.

"Uh, he-he said that I was aptly named. 'Forgetfulness'..." That was the heaviest issue on my mind at the time, even if I tried to tell myself that it was pointless to worry about when I couldn't do anything. "And he also had more pieces of the heirloom you're looking for. He had three that I saw..." _Wait, think about this. Nevi said it was misplaced, but it was probably stolen. If he's so worked up about that Alastor guy, then-_ "-He's the one who stole it, isn't he? Alastor stole that heirloom and broke it into pieces for some reason."

Nevi's expression showed confusion for a fraction of a second before he recovered his typical dignified and superior look. "Yes, it was him. He must have shown himself to you as a way of mocking me and my associates. Another reason you were selected for this task was your familiarity with some of the forgotten older legends. We were hoping it wouldn't be as easy for our enemy to mislead you."

_...I don't like this. Something feels wrong, and Nevi confirmed what I said too easily. I'd expect _him_ to try and mislead me so he can keep me under control. Instead he's volunteering more information without a fuss..._ I wasn't sure what to believe anymore. Maybe I was thinking about it too much, but I had no reason to actually trust everything Nevi told me. My left hand clenched slightly. _To him I'm just a tool, and this mark is like a cattle brand identifying me as his_.

"What else did he tell you?"

"Nothing, that's all. Yuri and the others showed up, and it seemed like he didn't want to stick around after that. He just tried to psych them out a bit." Whatever Sophia's case of notes was about, there was no reason to tell Nevi about it if he didn't see me as an equal to be treated with respect and trust.

"Hnph. If that's all then..." He turned away from me, and just as a few golden sparkles started to announce his departure-

"Now hold on there!"

-I grabbed him by the pseudo-monarch butterfly wings. The golden sparks turned red and yellow, flying off in all in directions and swirling away like a startled flock of birds. And Nevi actually squawked.

"Unhand me!" He gnashed his teeth at me. "What is it now?"

"I want you to tell me _why_ I'm forgetting things!" I jabbed a finger at his chest, keeping the other gripped tightly to a delicate wing. "If you don't tell me now then so help me, I will rip your wings off and use them to make kites!" Oh, his face kept switching between furious red and horrified white for a full minute at that.

Getting impatient, I started tugging on his wing a bit. "_Fine_, I admit I was not expecting you to suffer any memory loss. It is most likely a side effect of the spell I used to bring you here, but I cannot say for sure." I tugged a little harder, "I will of course be looking into the matter, and researching methods for reversing the side effects!" He hurriedly assured me. Feeling I shouldn't push my luck, I let go of his wing.

The fairy man quickly stepped out my reach, and fluttered his wings a bit as if to make sure they still worked. Glaring at me, he wasn't satisfied to leave while I still had the psychological advantage of having won. "It's no wonder your comrades feel the need to keep an eye on you. One cannot trust you enough to turn one's back on you."

"It's not my fault! What else can I tell them but lies?"

"Why are you so convinced that the truth is not an option?" I stared at Nevi, and it seemed he at least party understood my shock. "Of course I will not allow you to tell anyone about my people or the heirloom, but I could hardly care less if you told them the rest of the story. If it allowed you to locate the pieces faster, I would have no reason to object."

"You're either not thinking enough about what would happen, or really don't care about what happens to me." He quirked an eyebrow and I hurried to add, "I don't need to hear which.

"I can't tell them the truth about where I'm from, they'd never believe me! Not yet at least, they'd think I went even deeper off the end than that loony Zagi! And even then I definitely can never tell them about the game! No one wants to hear something like that, and anyone who didn't suffer some identity crisis or go into major denial would chase me down in order to use me!" _Like you guys did._

"Hnph. It matters not at all to me. Do as you wish." And Nevi poofed away again.

"...I wish I'd pulled his wings harder." Then I hurried back to the camp before the others suspected I'd run off again.

x x x

"This is Dahngrest, my hometown." Karol swept his arms open wide, inviting us to take a good look at the city behind him.

"Looks like a pretty lively place," Yuri observed.

"Well, it's the second largest city after the imperial capital," the boy informed us, pride evident in his voice. "It's run entirely by the guilds."

"I'd thought it would be more dark and dank, you know? Like a den of villains." A woman walked by while carrying a bouquet of flowers, providing an ironic contrast to Yuri's confessed expectations.

"That's just a prejudice people have about the guilds."

"I'm sure the bad reputation of the Blood Alliance is to blame for that."

I nodded at Estelle's words. "Besides, it's not like everyone in a given group will be exactly the same. There's bound to be both good and bad people in and out of the guilds."

"Yeah. Jeez, Yuri. You make it sound like I'm a villain." _Haha, the nefarious Mad Doctor Karol!_

"If you're a villain, what does that make him?" Rita pointed at Yuri while looking at the rest of us.

"Point taken," the former bounty target conceded. "So, how should we go about tracking down Barbos?"

"...Wanted posters?" I couldn't resist. And Yuri groaned into his hand at my suggestion.

Karol rescued him. "The best way is probably to stop by the Union and check there."

Estelle closed her eyes and went into "recital mode," "The Union. A guild collective run by the five so-called 'master guilds.' ...Right?"

"Yeah. The Union also serves as the city's government."

I hummed a little, "From what I've heard, isn't it more like Altosk calls all the shots?"

"That's because everyone in all the guilds looks up to The Don." _Eheheh, "The Don" always reminds me of the first season of "Last Comic Standing." Most of the participants looked up to one guy and his strategies, so they called him The Don. And he was _always_ ironing his laundry whenever on camera._

Not interested in hearing about the city's government, Rita placed one hand on her hip and waved the other out to draw our attention. "But how is this gonna work? Isn't Barbos' Blood Alliance one of the five master guilds?"

"Which means if we lay a hand on him, we'll be picking a fight with the Union as well."

I stopped following at that point, humming a snatch of music while I looked around and waited for the others to settle on trying to find The Don and getting an audience. When they started walking my feet followed on autopilot.

Then we ran into some rough looking men who began ragging on Karol for being passed around the guilds. "So are you the latest guild to take him in? You could do a lot better than that loser!" Poor Karol looked like he wanted to vanish into a dark hole in the ground.

"All this kid can brag about is the number of guilds he's joined! Oh, right, that's a bad thing."

Yuri narrowed his eyes, and then in a loud aside to Karol asked, "Are these your friends, Karol?" Then he topped it off by throwing their own words back at them. "You could do a lot better than these losers."

"Wh-what did you say?" One of them spluttered, and the other looked like he wanted to smash Yuri's head in with his (oversized) hammer.

"Right, of course you didn't stick around in any of those guilds. If this is the best they had to offer, you're way out of their league!" _Ah, that felt good. Really, Karol's experience in so many different guilds serves him well. No experience is a wasted experience, just another chance to learn_.

"You mouthy broad!" _Haa, reminds me of the English class when one of the guys kept laughing every time the teacher mentioned "broadsheets."_

Estelle spread her feet and swung a hand up to point dramatically at them. "Such undignified men!"

"Shut up!"

"You sure have a way of saying things. I mean, you're right, but..." _Rita, are you trying to help or not?_

"Yeah, you just keep talking..." As much as the brutes looked like they wanted to teach us a lesson, they had their priorities straight. The bell began ringing an alarm, and barely a second after they looked up in surprise, "Damn it... They're back again." They had their weapons out and were off running.

"What's that sound?" Rita asked us.

"The alarm... Monsters are here." Karol looked in the direction the men had left in. Though he didn't seem overly concerned.

"Monsters? ...Wait, is this shaking the monster's footsteps...?" I looked Estelle in surprise, then knelt down to place a hand on the ground. _Huh, actually I can feel some vibration from the ground. Wonder why I didn't notice...maybe because I got used to the construction going on next door to my house since last summer?_

"If so, they've brought quite an army," Yuri said grimly.

"Yeah, but don't worry," Karol tried to reassure us, confident in his hometown. "Even if there have been a lot of monsters around here lately... Our barrier here is strong, and it's never been broken before. And the guilds take care of the monsters outside the barrier."

As if on cue, there was a flash of light that drew our gazes upwards. We saw bolts of electricity flicker among the rings of the barrier, and then with one last bright flash it fizzled out.

"...There's a reason they say 'there's a first time for everything'," I grumbled.

"...Huh? Oh crap!" _Haa, the only thing funnier I've ever heard Karol say (technically I haven't actually heard it) is when he tells Rita "you suck!"_ Right, not a time to think about that, time to be serious and kill things.

"The barrier...disappeared...?" Estelle sounded like she didn't believe it despite having seen the barrier burn out with her own eyes.

Rita was nearly in hysterics, "What the hell is going on? The monsters are going to get inside!" Oh, yeah, she must have been shocked that a blastia could have failed.

"Damn it, why do things like this always happen to me, no matter where I go?"

Rita spun to Yuri with an accusing glare. "You gotta be cursed."

"...Maybe."

"Yuri, we have to go stop the monsters!" Seeing where this was going, I'd already pulled my daggers, figuring I'd be able to move faster with them than with my dao. I ran with the others toward the city edge, where we could already hear people screaming.

x x x

Some plot important things, mostly random stuff to lighten the mood from the previous chapters. Letha likes fairy tales, especially the older more original versions. Grimms beat Disney hands down! (No, that was not a Grimm fairy tale, and I'm not sure if it's really from Japan or not.)

I'll probably try putting up a poll within a few chapters. We're getting closer to the end of the aque-blastia-recovery-mission part of the story, and then we'll be moving on to the actual Brave Vesperia as a guild. I want to know what side quests and jobs people are interested in seeing (besides ones required for the story) and start thinking about working them in.

_First_ on the agenda will be the guard seduction scene! I'll let my readers and reviewers choose who gets chosen to dress up sexy and distract the guard! Estelle, Judith, and Karol are options since the game allows it, but _I_ will also include Letha and Yuri in the choices! PLUS! How I write that scene will be affected by all the votes! For example, if there's a close second then the second most popular will almost be selected but turn it around or something. (*Gasp* What if there's a tie! That would be fuuuun!)


	19. Chapter 19: Black Widow and Cats

New chapter is up fast! Because I just had a hell of a fun time writing it.

Rhino600: I recall a quote of some sort, "If I don't laugh then I'll cry" or something like that. In other words, if Letha wasn't random she'd turn emo and angsty. Much more fun to write random silly stuff, and believable as some subconscious defense mechanism she doesn't even realize she fell back on.

As for the Letha picture, I've put the deviantart link in my profile (though here it is again, be sure to remove the spaces: http:/sylph writer .deviant art .com/ ) and there's another (BETTER) picture of her up. Every now and then I'll get the itch to draw and might make something else to add there. But really, it's just so anyone interested knows what she looks like, I'm much more confident in my paintings.

x x x

Chapter 19: Black Widow and Cats

x x x

I ran as fast as I could but still ended up falling behind Yuri and Repede. I managed to keep even with Estelle though, and was faster than the younger (and shorter) kids trailing behind. The streets and courtyards were in chaos, people fleeing in all directions with monsters running them down. There were already pools of blood and broken bodies lying here and there. A woman with a trampled bouquet of flowers was nearest to me and one body looked to suspiciously small to be an adult.

Horrified, I couldn't help but stop for a minute to take it in, and the others stopped beside me. Well, most of them did.

"This is crazy. Where are all these monsters coming from?" Yuri growled and lunged forward to slash open the side of armored boar thing (looked like one of the monsters I'd "met" in Ragou's basement).

Shaking off my own shock, I leaped onto the back of a giant crab (it was facing away). "Pierce!" I stabbed both green glowing daggers in up to the hilts. It made a high pitched squeal and tried to grab me with its pincers, but couldn't reach me. Of course next it tried to throw me off by thrashing around, but the daggers provided some nice handles to hold onto for the impromptu rodeo.

_Umm, this probably won't work, but I wanna try something._ I'd gotten enough practice with controlling aer for my strike artes that I didn't actually need to use breathing exercises anymore, but I took a deep breath like I was going to. Instead of blowing out a stream of air I hummed a low note instead, and tried to imagine the energy I was forcing into my daggers to vibrate the same way.

It felt surprisingly like holding onto my PS2 controller when it was set to vibrate. Though unlike the controller the daggers kept vibrating for as long as I concentrated aer into them and on humming. I jerked both in separate directions, opening long gashes in the crab monster's back. I jumped off, gasping for air a little. That move took more energy out of me than my other artes.

The crab had rounded on me, its pincers snapping at the air angrily. I sheathed my right dagger and whipped out my dao. "Star Stroke!" Now that the monster finally fell dead, and I'd somehow gotten through the fight without getting hurt, I took a moment to see how everyone else was doing.

Yuri wreaked havoc everywhere with his sword, working in tandem with Repede to double team monsters. They were easily killing more than any of the rest of us.

Estelle was dividing her attention between fighting with sword and shield and casting First Aid. She'd Star Stroke or Pierce Cluster something, and then spin away and heal either the nearest fighter or a fleeing noncombatant.

Rita, of course, was flinging spells in all directions. Fireball, Splash, Stone Blast, I didn't think she was even paying much attention to what she was hitting as long as no one yelled at her for killing someone.

Karol was getting in hits of Dragon Upper and Destroying Rock against any monster that got too close, except for the giant flying bugs. He'd just run away from those flailing, until someone else killed it or he got drawn into fighting an armored boar, feathered lizard, or giant crab.

It took only a few minutes to assess this, during which I was trying to drag people out of the way and shoving apple gels into the hands of anyone who looked hurt. After eating an orange gel myself, I leaped back in and started working on a trio of lizard monsters.

"Piercing Afterimage!"

It was tiring, continuously fighting monster after monster, and I soon lost track of how long we'd been fighting. At times I'd find myself fighting a monster or a group together with one of the others, sometimes even with some members of the guilds also involved in this free for all, or covering Rita while she was casting, or separated and on my own again.

I'd long since run out of apple gels and had only a few orange ones left. Estelle and Karol tried to keep up with our more serious injuries with First Aid and Nice Aid Smash. But we were all still pretty banged up. I personally sported numerous cuts on both arms and my back (I'd have to mend my shirt and coat later). At one point my arm had been broken, and if Estelle hadn't been quick to fix it I probably would have passed out from the pain.

Bent over a stitch in my side and trying to breathe normally, I held my daggers in front of me defensively. I'd gotten cut off from the others and backed up against the wall of a building by a pair of armored boars and some giant bugs were hovering nearby. A boar charged and I dodged to the side, humming and tearing its side open with slashes from my vibrating daggers. Blood poured out onto my arms and boots.

As the monster gave a dying squeal I tried to raise my guard again before the others could attack me. But the bugs were already diving at me and the remaining boar pawed the ground as if about to charge as well.

I slashed at the air wildly, trying to drive the bugs back but not really hitting anything. Suddenly one jerked in the air and fell to the ground with a short arrow between its wings. I didn't hesitate to stab it to make sure it stayed down and dead, finishing off more bugs that were shot down with more arrows soon after.

I rolled out of the way when the boar actually charged, and looked up to see a claymore sword come crashing down on its head. The man holding the sword also had a crossbow swinging from a cord tied to his belt, so it was safe to assume he'd been my helper. I didn't recognize him, so I figured he must be another guildsman recently arrived to the fight.

My knees protesting that they didn't want to support me again, I stood up with a groan. Nodding thanks to the man, I rushed back into the courtyard where the rest of my group was trying to use a lull in the fighting as a chance to regroup. Yuri was watching something with amazement plain in his face. I turned to see what, and saw the Don roaring into the face of a group of monsters and waving his sword.

"Come see how it feels ta get beat down by an old man!"

Yuri took an uncertain step forward, as if thinking he should go help but seeing the Don didn't need it when he practically trampled a lizard. "That old guy is really going after them. Who the hell is he?"

"It's the Don! That's Don Whitehorse!" Karol was nearly bouncing in place, for once not seeming to care that we were surrounded by monsters.

"So that's him, huh?"

Estelle stood up again, the people she'd just healed thanking her profusely before running for shelter. She looked a little shaky on her feet so I passed her one of my remaining orange gels. She accepted it with a tired smile. Then her eyes focused on something past my shoulder, "Flynn!" I looked back and did indeed see the young knight running at the head of his brigade.

"We've come to help subdue the monsters!" he called to the Don.

"Hold yer horses, knight-boy!" Whitehorse grunted and stepped to make sure Flynn couldn't get between him and the monster he was fighting. "We couldn't live with ourselves if we let the Knights do our dirty work. Now get the hell outta here!"

"Pride and upholding your principles is all well and good," I grumbled, "But you shouldn't turn down help that's already here." Fortunately, no guild members were near enough to hear me.

Sodia looked like she wanted to chew the Don out for turning down her superior's offer of help, but kept her mouth shut. Instead Flynn was the one who responded, "Is this really the time for that?"

"Each and every one of these people left the empire of their own free will and joined a guild!" The Don punctuated this with a heavy chop of his sword that nearly beheaded a boar. "There ain't a soul in this town so spineless they'd go runnin' ta you guys fer help."

"But!"

"These're the rules of the life we've chosen. It's up to us to make sure those rules don't get broken."

"Holding to your beliefs no matter what's at stake..." Yuri murmured, listening to the Don's speech with new respect. "So that's what a real guild is like." _Hmm, in the movie that's supposed to precede the game, Yuri's first contact with guild members is a bar fight he starts after hearing how they'd cheated an old man. He gets on pretty well with their guild leader afterwards, but the experience probably still left him a bit biased_.

"Hey, you there! Lead the way." Rita threw a bit of magic at Karol to get his attention back from watching the Don with starry eyes.

"I have a name you know!" He protested while beating a bit of flame out of his bag. "Wh-where are we going, anyway?"

"We're going to repair the barrier blastia. If we don't, the city will be overrun with monsters!" I blinked. _I only just realized this is the same solution from Halure. Estelle really is learning from past experiences: fix the barrier and the people can be saved_.

Karol nodded and ran off towards the blastia, Estelle on his heels. Rita grabbed me by the wrist and yelled, "You're coming too!" at Yuri while dragging me after her.

"Guess that's my only option," he said, watching me stumble after the smaller mage.

x x x

_**What's Going on Here?**_

_Yuri: The barrier failed right as the monsters appeared? What the hell is going on in this city?_

_Letha: Not fun, not fun at all._

_Karol: I've lived in Dahngrest my whole life, but I've never seen anything like this._

_Rita: So why the hell do we have such terrible timing?_

_Karol: How should I know?_

_*Karol and Rita stare at Yuri*_

_Yuri: What? You don't really think I'm cursed, do you?_

_Letha: Raid any mummy tombs lately? That might explain it._

x x x

When we reached the blastia Rita found her second wind and sprinted up the stairs ahead of us to see it. "Hmm, I might be able to do something with this," she began mumbling stuff aloud that I couldn't begin to follow.

"Rita, watch out! Behind you!" Estelle cried. Yuri and I (I'd just remembered the Red-eyes were responsible and waiting to attack us) got there first and blocked the waving curved swords of the assassins.

"We won't let you fix the barrier," one hissed at us.

"What the hell! It's just one thing after another! I'm sick of this!" Rita started powering up a fireball to blast someone with.

"Leave them to us, just get the damn barrier back up!" I shouted at her and tackled the nearest Red-eye. I was pretty pissed. _It's your fault I'm all covered in blood and feeling nasty!_

Despite my new burst of I'm-Pissed-Off energy, we were all tired and the Red-eyes were fresh for battle. Yuri was still in pretty good form, he was having fun after all, even if he was just as grim about the situation as we were. Estelle looked like she was tired of holding her sword and shield up, but still blocked and returned blows fairly well. I didn't see what Karol was doing before having to return my attention to my own opponent, but he'd manage somehow or pull back where it was safe. I wouldn't blame him if he had, he'd already done his fair share and then some (in my opinion).

I, however, wasn't sure what I was going to do about the man I had picked a fight with. He'd gotten up again and was circling in closer to me while brandishing his sharp gleaming weapon. My arms and legs felt rubbery and hard to lift, even with adrenaline in my veins. I also just couldn't think clearly enough to try formulating strategy. Some tired part of my brain suggested, "Do something unexpected."

I stood up straight and threw my arms out wide, "George! It's been ages since I last saw you!"

He stumbled a bit and though I couldn't see his face clearly, I'd bet good money his expression was one of hilarious confusion. "What?"

I wagged a finger at him, "Shame one you, you never return my calls!"

"I don't know you, woman!"

"What?" I shrieked. "How can you not know your fiancée!" I narrowed my eyes at him, "It's Mary Sue, isn't it? You've been seeing that bitch behind my back!"

"Listen, lady, I don't know who this 'George' is, but I'm not-" before he could finish explaining that he wasn't the bastard who was cheating on me, I flung myself at him in a flurry of daggers. "Shit!" For awhile he managed to keep up, and even grazed my knuckles and hands with his weapon, but I managed to force my way through his guard.

I stood over his body and a rapidly spreading pool of blood, panting, and finally gasped out, "I think I probably just added more to the 'reasons I'm probably insane' list someone must be keeping. I just killed my fiancé who never actually existed. Cheating bastard." It was a poor attempt at humor, but killing a person makes my sense of what's funny go out of whack. Estelle and Karol (there he was) were looking at me with wide eyes and edging away a bit.

Rita was typing away at the blastia controls and everyone else watched with a wary eye for any more Red-eyes. "Looks like we have those guys to thank for the barrier blastia failing on us," Yuri nodded at the bodies lying around us.

"But why?" Estelle wondered.

Wanting to sound intelligent without giving away that I knew what was going on already, I tried to think of the situation in a hypothetical and generic point of view. "Stopping the barrier from working is a surefire way to cause widespread panic. So it serves as a pretty effective distraction if you need to do something without being noticed."

That earned me some surprised and considering looks "A distraction? To cover up what?" Yuri asked. I shrugged and leaned wearily against a brick wall.

"If I knew, then the people trying to distract us wouldn't be doing a very good job." _Actually, Barbos(sa) wants to get everyone worked up so a war can start. He wants to take out the Don and take his place..._ Yuri didn't seem quite convinced that I'd said all I knew about the matter, but I was saved when Flynn and his knights arrived to check on the situation.

"Looks like you've got your hands full over here," he observes while noting the bodies scattered around us. _Glad he has enough faith in us (in Yuri) to not jump to the conclusion that we just went on a murdering spree for the hell of it_.

Yuri switched his attention from me to Flynn. (Glad about that, my breath wasn't recovering and I could feel a build up of pressure in my chest that signaled I was having another bout of aer sickness.) "So, the Don's little lecture didn't stick?"

"I'm just doing what I can to help. How's the repair of the blastia barrier going?"

Yuri tilted his head to direct attention over to Rita. "That'll depend on our genius mage, here." She didn't even notice the collective attention on her as she typed and muttered to herself.

Something about cores and an amplifier...and, "And this formula again... The same as they were using back on Ehmead Hill..." The wall was all that was keeping me from falling over. Estelle apparently noticed, and placed a hand on my arm to help support me. I nodded my thanks at her discrete help.

Closing my eyes and focusing on breathing normally through the aer sickness, I didn't pay attention to Yuri and Flynn discussing how too coincidental it was for the barrier to fail and an army of monsters to attack immediately afterwards. And Yuri tried to fish for more information on how the Empire fit into it all.

Rita gave a triumphant cry, and the answering ones of relief from all over town told me that she'd fixed the barrier. Moments later I felt the pressure in my chest ease up and disappear.

Flynn was addressing his knights, ordering them to fight the monsters outside the barrier to honor the letter (and ignore the spirit) of the Don's command that the Knights leave the guilds to defend their own city.

Yuri turned back to us (I thought it was funny how him taking lead of our group at this moment mirrored Flynn's actions so well. It probably had gone entirely over the man's dark head). "We'll leave the monsters to Flynn. Let's go to the Union and ask about Barbos." He looked over at me and Estelle by the wall. "You think you can keep up?" _Ah, he noticed anyway._

I straightened and nodded. "I'm fit for more walking. Told you it's usually not a problem, just needed a moment." So off we went to look for the Don and the Union, and I squashed a slightly lightheaded urge to sing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

x x x

I totally did not pay any attention to what Yuri and the guard at the Union's headquarters talked about. Already knew the gist of it: we didn't have an appointment, we weren't a guild, Don wasn't there, Don was cleaning out monster nests and might not be back for a long time.

We walked further away so that the guard's eyeballs wouldn't pop out of his head from giving us the evil eye and had a little pow wow.

Rita crossed her arms and said, "Since it seems like you won't be making progress anytime soon, I'm going to go check out Keiv Moc."

"How selfish!" Karol cried.

"I just want to get it out of the way as soon as possible."

"Yeah, it's not her fault Alexei breathing down her neck to get her work done," I added. If my less than complimentary tone when saying his name was noticed, nobody said anything about it.

Karol looked from the mage to the princess. "Then does that mean Estelle's going along with you?"

"Yes. I told Alexei I was going to go, after all..." Catching Yuri's reluctant expression, she added, "Don't worry. We'll be fine between the two of us."

"Sorry, 'fraid not. If you got hurt or anything, Flynn would hunt me down and kill me."

"And my ghost would come back and haunt you." Yuri's eyebrows rose as he looked at me. "What? You thought I was gonna let the healer and the mage go off alone without another fighter backing them up? I'm going even if they tell me not to."

"You're both going?" Karol looked back and forth between us, the little sibling afraid of being left behind by his big brother and sister. _Aww, he's like a puppy_.

Yuri shrugged at him, "Well, we don't really have any good leads around town that we're following, anyway."

"Then it's decided! Let's go to the forest of Keiv Moc." Estelle clapped her hands together and turned to Rita, but then swayed a bit.

"Tomorrow," I said.

Yuri nodded in agreement, "We've been walking and fighting all day already. We won't get far without rest first."

x x x

We got rooms at the Arcturus Inn, two like usual. First thing I did was lock myself in the shower room (yes, they had showers, but very simple public ones in stalls like in campgrounds I've stayed at). An idea occurred to me while eating dinner (something barbecued), and I caught Yuri's eye with a mischievous grin. Afterwards he found me talking to the inn keeper.

"What are you up to?"

I smiled winningly at him and held up a stack of paper and stick of charcoal (I hate drawing with charcoal, don't ask why, but using it was necessary). "I just thought I'd practice my sketching again. In the mood to draw a few...cats."

He grinned at me. "I think I'll go see if there's anymore of that sauce left from dinner."

I spent the next few hours sitting by a fire alternately sewing up the tears in my clothes and drawing cats in various poses. While I carefully filled in the stripes of a tiger, I sensed someone walk up to stand in front of me. "'Scuse me, but are you Letha Vitae?"

When I looked up the person in front of me was a tall man around mine and Yuri's age, with longish sandy brown hair tied back and a heavy brown coat. "You are...?" He shifted his weight a bit and I caught sight of the claymore on his back. "Oh! You're the one who helped me before!" I twisted around to put the papers and sewing kit in my lap on a nearby table so I could stand. He blinked at me before recognition flashed in his eyes.

"Oh, I didn't realize you were the same person." I shrugged a bit. My coat and black shirt were left draped over the chair's arm. Instead I was wearing my Vesperian leggings and shorts with my Earth tank top, so I could understand. "My name's Chase Lyall. I heard you met my dad, Arcas Lyall."

"Back in Halure. He mentioned he had a son." I fought hard not to think of what else Arcas had said so I wouldn't start blushing again. Though that reminded me. "Ah, he also told me he'd pay my uncle a visit! Was Ludwig doing okay?"

Chase pulled off his claymore and propped it against the wall, then dropped down into one of the other chairs by the fire with a groan. He seemed nearly as wiped as we were. After a moment he twisted and pulled out his crossbow (must have been hidden under his long jacket) and dropped it next to the chair. I sat down again and tried to be patient.

"Sorry, long day. Yeah, dad and I went to see Ludwig. He didn't seem happy to see us, actually, but his mood improved when dad gave him your letter." Chase winked at me (goddammit, when I was a kid I always winked back when someone did that, and I had to fight down the old habit), "Bet he misses his pampered little princess."

"Pampered? Me? Oh no, you've got the wrong girl after all. You must be looking for a different Letha Vitae," I joked. Then as my own words registered in my mind, I felt depression sinking in. _The wrong girl indeed..._ He chuckled though, and I kept smiling as I picked up the charcoal stick and went back to drawing.

Chase reached out a hand to grab some of the finished sheets. "Why are these all cats? Your favorite animal?"

"Nope. Wolves are, actually. But cats are pretty awesome too."

"These pictures are..." he trailed off as if looking for a polite way to say I sucked at drawing. Well, I'm not _bad_, I'm just better at painting, and wasn't trying so hard this time.

"Crappy. Doesn't matter if they're not so great, the point is they just have to be recognizable as cats and that there's a lot of them."

"Why?"

I grinned at him. "'Cause Yuri said there's plenty of sauce leftover." I didn't explain any further and just began humming while starting the mane of a lion.

"Uh huh..." Letting it go, Chase stretched in his chair and cracked his neck (It freaks me out a bit when people do that...). "So we didn't stick around your uncle's place for long. My dad did try to get permission to have me marry you," the charcoal slipped and made a heavy line across the page and I made some weird strangled squeaking noise, "but no one ever takes him seriously when he tries to play matchmaker." He was smirking at me, and I glared at him. _Ha ha, revenge for me being confusing is yours_.

"What, you're already engaged to another guy?" Ninja quiet Yuri had come up behind my chair while Chase and I were talking. "Didn't you kill your last fiancé just this afternoon?" Chase snapped an incredulous stare from me to Yuri and back. I rolled my eyes at the black haired swordsman.

"George was cheating on me with Mary Sue. He had it coming."

"Scary. You're a real Black Widow."

"It doesn't count, we weren't actually married yet." Finally I couldn't keep a straight face anymore, and burst out laughing at the horrified look on Chase's face. "We're kidding! Some guys attacked us earlier and I started yelling something random at them to get them by surprise."

"'Surprised' is an understatement. Hell, when you started acting like you actually knew that guy, I almost missed a counter and got stabbed," Yuri gave me a mild glare and I smiled back sheepishly. "The guy you were screaming at must've had no clue what happened. Do you even know anyone named George?"

"Nope." I looked back at Chase. "Yuri, this is Chase Lyall. He's the son of another former Protectors guild member. Chase, this is Yuri Lowell, one of the people I'm traveling with."

"Yuri Lowell? I saw some wanted posters for you not that long ago, for ten thousand gald..."

"Misunderstanding. He was pardoned," I was quick to tell him. I didn't miss the look of disappointment, and I'm sure Yuri noticed it to. He sighed at the mention of wanted posters, and then gathered up my finished cat drawings.

"Karol's already asleep, so I'll take these now. Remember to wake up early tomorrow." So saying, he left me a bottle of the sauce from dinner and took his leave.

Chase watched him leave, "Getting up early to go somewhere?"

"Yeah, but that's not the only reason I need to wake up early."

"Why else?"

I just smiled and held up the sauce bottle. The sauce was thick and a good shade of red. "I'm a terrible person."

x x x

Aaah, somehow despite all the fighting and blood, this became another chapter that focused more on jokes than plot. And here I thought I'd squeeze Raven in before the end... Well, he'll be in the next chapter!

Anyone guess what Yuri and Letha are up to? I've probably given enough clues.


	20. Chapter 20: Quoth the Raven!

My Gawd, I am EVIL. The beginning was way too much fun, and I'm sure you can all guess why. And I somehow managed to figure out how to put up the poll for the Guard Seduction scene in my profile. There's plenty of time and plot left before we get there, but no reason not to start voting now.

Rhino600: Yuri + Raven – Y chromosomes = Letha? I find I can't really argue that...or don't really want to.

Song for this chapter (or at least the second half) is Fall Out Boy - "Thanks for the Memories" because I saw a cool tribute to Raven/Schwann with that song on youtube. Title for this chapter is stupid, but it works.

x x x

Chapter 20: Quoth the Raven!

x x x

The guests in the inn (and the neighbors) were woken up the next morning by two ear splitting shrieks. Anyone who tried to roll over and go back to sleep (not many of those) was woken again by the furious, "I'M GONNA KILL YOU JERKS!"

Yuri and I looked up from our breakfasts towards the ceiling (we'd gotten up early to make sure the sauce would be fresh and realistic looking when we put it on) and then looked at each other.

"You're sure she won't actually kill us, right?" I never would have dared to play such a trick on Rita if I didn't have a partner in crime who doubled as a bodyguard. Plus we'd run into a few curious guild members who had loaned us their flare capes the night before.

"You could always start running now. Might even still have enough time to get out of range."

I looked at him, "What about you? Saying I should leave you behind to face the music alone?"

"Meh, running would be too much of a hassle." By then the point was moot. There was the crashing of running footsteps down the stairs, and the apoplectic mage appeared in the kitchen.

"YOU!" She threw fireballs at us, and I huddled under my cape. I peeked out when the overwhelming heat went away, and got a face full of water. When I finally finished coughing and wiping the dripping water out of my eyes, I saw Yuri had also been drenched, sopping wet bangs plastered flat over his eyes.

"Shit, not again..." I groaned.

"It's only what you deserve, both of you!" Estelle scolded us from the doorway. She had her arm around Karol's shoulders, and he looked quite pale and jumpy.

"C-cats...cats with blood..." When the little ace saw us, he seemed to snap out of it a bit, "You guys SUCK!"

"You idiots! How can you call yourselves adults! I can't believe you-you both just-" Rita's ranting degenerated into inarticulate shrieks of rage with the occasional recognizable word. She finally stopped and stood in front of us, shoulders rising up and down as she breathed heavily and glared.

"Hey guys," Yuri deadpanned, "We made breakfast." I dropped the fistful of hair I'd been squeezing water from to point at the plates of French toast, eggs, and bacon (fortunately tucked in a corner out of the predicted crossfire). Repede was eating the failed pieces of toast (my first time making it!) under the table.

The others accepted our prearranged peace offering, though Rita did so grudgingly, and sat down to eat. But it wasn't long before the inn keeper came in red faced. "Honored guests, can you please tell me _why_ there are pictures of cats smeared with our house sauce on the walls? And _WHY_ there is a _DEAD MONSTER_ in the upstairs hallway?"

"Don't worry, we put old rags under it so the blood wouldn't get on the carpet," Yuri told him. I finally couldn't keep it in anymore and collapsed on the table, sobbing with laughter.

"I can't believe you let Yuri talk you into this, Letha," Estelle chided me.

"Hey, don't just assume it was me!" The others looked at him, "It was all her idea! Even the monster and covering the floor!" I grinned happily through tears of laughter.

x x x

_The night before:_

_I just smiled and held up the sauce bottle. The sauce was thick and a good shade of red. "I'm a terrible person." Then I paused as a new thought occurred to me. Twisting around in my seat I called for Yuri to come back._

_When he did I grabbed his hand and pulled him down closer so I could whisper in his ear, "Yo, there should be a lot of dead monsters still lying around from earlier, right?"_

_He looked at me incredulously, then his expression turned speculative. "You know, it wouldn't hurt to check."_

"_Just what are you guys up to?" Chase demanded, fed up with being left out._

_I glanced back at him, then returned my attention to Yuri. "You know, it would be easier to carry if we had another person."_

"_Hmm, I suppose it would." We both turned to stare at Chase._

"_Wh-what?"_

_Several hours later, when it was late and most people had gone back to bed, the three of us were back out on the streets of Dahngrest._

"_I can't believe you guys talked me into playing undertaker! If my father only knew..."_

"_You gonna get in trouble with him?" Yuri grunted a bit under the weight._

"_Heck, no! He'll probably bring the roof down laughing so hard! But he'd make me tell the story _every_ time I saw him or we had company!"_

"_Sounds like Arcas all right," I muttered, trying to adjust my grip and use the Aikido unbendable arm to ease the stress. With limited success._

"_Just what are y'all doing carryin' a dead monster in the middle of the night for?" Some guildsmen who were probably on patrol (for troublemakers or maybe even surviving monsters still inside the barrier) stopped our slow progress to question us._

"_Well you see sir," I explained politely and respectfully, "we have some friends in the inn who were scared by a story I told them recently. And we got to thinking, 'gee, wouldn't it be a lark to recreate the story as a prank to scare them with'. So of course we needed to come out and find a dead monster, or else it just wouldn't be the same." Someone in the back of the patrol barked a laugh._

"_Oh man, dad is gonna hear about this and he'll never shut up about it."_

"_Hey, stop complaining. You wanted to know what we were doing."_

"_Yeah, and as long as we don't tell our friends, you won't have to worry about Rita...oh crap." The men all looked at me, thinking that maybe the lizard monster was too much for me even with their help (I'm not _that _weak!). "Rita is totally gonna start throwing fireballs at us."_

"_Yeah, she probably will."_

"_One of your friends is a mage, huh?"_

_I nodded, "A mage with a short fuse and penchant for fire magic."_

"_Better borrow these then," two of the patrol men removed their bright red capes and draped them over the monster's carcass (conveniently also making it less noticeable, I should have thought of that). "Flare capes, reduce the effects of enemy fire magic. We'll come pick 'em up in the morning, you can leave them with the front desk for us."_

"_Thanks a bunch! Now we don't have to worry about early graves!" I beamed at them, and our awkward trio resumed its shuffling march back to the inn._

"_I'm still not gonna leave my room til after the fireworks end."_

_:End flashback._

x x x

Needless to say, Yuri and I were banned from Arcturus Inn indefinitely. Being victims, the rest of the group were still allowed, but I was sure they'd probably be kept under a stern eye if they tried to spend the night.

Some of the guests looked completely scandalized, or even refused to come out of their rooms until after the mess was cleaned up (Yuri and I had to clean it, good thing I'd insisted on keeping the monster carcass on an old blanket for easy clean up). There were definitely guests who'd started laughing at the whole thing once they got over their shock though. A few were probably members from the patrol last night who'd come to see the fun for themselves. We left the flare capes with the receptionist for them to claim once the fuss died down.

Chase did not show his face all morning. It wasn't possible for him to have missed what was going on, so he was definitely hiding from Rita and the inn staff. So far, no one knew there'd been a third person in on the prank, but once the men from the patrol started talking about it he'd have to hope none of them saw him well enough to recognize him.

Since the staff wouldn't let us go until Yuri and I finished straightening up our mess, we left later in the morning than we'd been planning to. I couldn't help yawing as we left town. After all, I'd been up late lugging around dead monsters, then got up early to paint cat mouths with sauce and help cook breakfast. _It's not fair, Yuri doesn't seem to be having trouble from lack of sleep. There aren't even bags under his eyes!_ I yawned again.

Gradually the trees and plants around us had been getting bigger, until they looked like giants taken out of a dinosaur age movie. I looked around with a growing sense of excitement. _Ohmehgawd, awesomeness!_ Having been a die hard fan of fantasy since I was a little child, it had always been a dream of mine to see such a wild place without signs of human influence.

But as we got deeper into the forest, the trees continued to increase in ridiculous size. My inner child's delight withered and became more practical concern. _For them to have grown so abnormally large...they probably can't even support their own weight anymore and eventually come crashing down. All because of the Aer Krene, and the unbalanced production of aer_. I glanced surreptitiously at Estelle, who was turning a slow circle while looking up at the treetops.

"I had no idea trees this big existed..."

"Yeah, but it doesn't exactly look healthy for them to be this overgrown." Yuri looked around with an eye even more practical than mine.

"It's just like you said, Karol." Rita was fingering the leaves of one bush, turning it over and checking the stem. "It's like what happened at Heliord when the blastia went berserk." The bush began rustling a bit and Rita jumped back in surprise.

"Be careful... There's somebody here." Karol had his ax out and he looked as if he would even manage to stand his ground. Rita braced herself, ready to gather the aer needed for a fireball at a moment's notice.

"Hey, what a coincidence!" _Yaaay! The canon comic relief has finally arrived!_ Raven picked his way out of the small game trail behind the bush and then flashed his crooked grin at us.

"What the hell are you doing in a place like this?" Yuri asked with disbelief in his voice. _Are you wondering if Raven is stalking us? He kinda is..._

The older man tilted his head with a halfhearted shrug. "Ya know, out for a forest stroll, takin' in the nature..."

"Something smells fishy..." Karol said in a stage whisper. I mimed gagging a bit and covered my mouth and nose.

"No, Karol, don't say that! It's already hard enough not to get sick from thinking about how fishy this is!" Everyone was probably having mental flashbacks to the episode with the Wonder Chef trying to rehabilitate me to seafood.

"What? Where's my welcome?" Raven whined, oblivious to the full meaning of my jab.

"You didn't think we'd honestly be glad to see you, right?" _I am, Rita. Raven is awesomeness in a purple coat._

"Aw, ya don't mean that. I can come in handy ya know."

"...You're not thinking of coming with us, right?" Karol warily asked.

"Of course! It's lonely bein' out here all by my lonesome." His obviously dramatic tone made his plea very unconvincing. "What, no dice?" Raven shifted his feet and crossed his arms behind his head. He looked so careless, but he'd probably follow us in secret if we actually did turn him away.

"You'd better watch your back. If you try anything funny, you're dead." Rita spun and stalked off deeper into the trees.

Raven watched her go and then gave us what was probably supposed to be puppy dog eyes. "Hey, ya don't really think my story stinks that bad, do ya?"

"Yeah, the stench is sort of coming off of you in waves," Yuri grimaced, and I kept my hand clamped over my nose. In my case, however, I was trying to hide my wide grin.

"Really...!" Raven began sniffing exaggeratedly at his arm pits. _...I found where I differ from his brand of silliness. He's cruder_.

"I can't take responsibility for what I'll do if you make any sudden moves," Yuri warned him. "Don't forget that." _That's the casual but deadly serious voice, Raven. LISTEN to the man!_ Without waiting for a response the swordsman turned and followed Rita. Raven spread his arms in a "what can ya do?" manner and fell into step behind the group.

What with all the others wanting to avoid the blatantly suspicious man, I found that I was the one walking nearest to him. As much as I'd been looking forward to actually meeting him, I still felt a bit awkward around him. _No_, it wasn't anything like a fangirl meeting her crush type of awkward, but a "how do I act like I don't know anything?" type.

In the end he broke the ice and greeted me first, "Hey there, I don't remember seein' ya with these guys before, and I never forget a pretty girl's face." _Gyah! Blush!_ I am not used to anyone calling me cute or pretty. Only my parents ever did, and that's not the same thing.

"Eh, um, you must have last seen them when I was out on one of my own walks," I stammered. "My name's Letha." I might have imagined it, but I thought something flickered in his eyes at my name. Well, given that he worked for Alexei there was the possibility that the commandant had given Raven orders to watch me.

He fell back on his melodramatic speech, "Ah, such a lovely name fer such a lovely maiden!"

"...Hearing you say that makes me feel like I should punch you." _I may have low tolerance for being called pretty, but it's not like I could ever take RAVEN'S flirting seriously_.

"How cold..."

x x x

_**Really, Really Fishy**_

_Rita: I know there's not much point in bringing it up again, but this guy's really fishy._

_Karol: Yeah, how long's he planning to stick with us, anyway?_

_Estelle: Does he even have a good reason for being in Keiv Moc?_

_Yuri: You heard 'em, old man. Spit it out._

_Raven: Huh? I'm gonna stick with ya guys as long as need be. And as fer my reasons, I thought I told ya—I'm on a mission of self-discovery!_

_Rita: You said you were "out for a forest stroll!" "Takin' in the nature!"_

_Raven: Oh, I did?_

_Yuri: If I had a memory that bad, I'd want to find myself, too._

_Raven: There you go!_

_Letha: Maybe he's one of Yuri's stalker fanboys._

_Yuri: Oh, hell no!_

_Raven: Why would I wanna stalk a guy? I'd rather follow a gorgeous babe around!_

_Rita: You shouldn't say that so proudly, old man._

_Karol: Really fishy. Really really really fishy._

_**Well Known Old Man**_

_Letha: Hey, Raven..._

_Raven: Yes fair maiden? Wait, I thought ya weren't there when ol' Raven introduced himself._

_Letha: Ah? O-oh, I heard one of the others call you that..._

_Raven: My reputation precedes me! The ladies are all talking about Raven the Great!_

_Letha: Yeah...don't be so happy. I only heard bad things about you being an old weirdo._

_Raven: You're breakin' my heart!_

_Letha: Meh, probably not the first one to. Though that reminds me, I wanted to say thanks for indirectly helping me in Nor Harbor. So thanks old man!_

_*Letha leaves*_

_Raven: I'm such a stud! What'd I do?_

x x x

Keiv Moc was full of giant bugs. UUUGH. There were the flying beetles that attacked in Dahngrest, and a bunch of praying mantises...praying manti..._I have no idea how you make that plural. It's moose all over again!_ I slashed at a mantis with my dao, finding the range it provided preferable to using my considerably shorter daggers to take on a bug with its own swords.

Sometimes I would turn around and almost trip over Karol. He was hiding behind everyone, though mostly me and Estelle. Yuri was too fast for him to keep up with, Rita kept smacking him in the head when she spooked about him suddenly being behind her, and the little boy didn't trust Raven enough. And of course he tried to act as if he wasn't purposefully avoiding the bugs. I didn't have the heart to chase him off. Heck, back in Dahngrest I'd actually made up excuses to turn down the dead bugs as props in our prank because even I'm not _that_ cruel. Yuri probably assumed I was scared of them myself.

As I'd been thinking earlier, some of the largest trees had indeed fallen down. Climbing over them all the time would have been a real pain, if not nearly impossible, so we actually started walking along the trunks and branches like they were a series of boardwalks.

Raven had fallen to the back of the group as we picked our way over the moss covered trunk (slippery!). The others kept looking back at him, and you could almost hear them wondering "why the hell is he still following us?"

Finally Raven stopped and waved his hand in a negligent manner, "Aww, don't mind me. Do whatever you came to do."

The princess looked back uncertainly. "What should we do about him?"

"Do you know any tricks that'll convince us you're worth keeping around?" Yuri called back to him.

"Do I look like some kinda street magician ta you?" Raven griped and rubbed his head.

"...Honestly, yes. I think it's the long purple jacket that does it." I looked him over and tried to imagine a top hat with a rabbit. _Doesn't work_. Imagined a beautiful assistant in costume bringing in props. _Can see that..._

Raven had pulled Karol off to the side to help him demonstrate. Poor Karol wailed as a bug surged up from under the tree and attacked him. Yuri and Estelle moved as if to jump forward and help him, but Raven waved them back. As the boy waved his ax around in desperate "don't come any closer" attacks, Raven shot an arrow over his head that lodged into its exoskeletal armor.

Putting his bow away, Raven casually stood by to watch. "Should be any minute now..." Now Yuri was too curious to try and interrupt, and Estelle followed his lead. Me? I was trying to do a mental countdown. _Three...two...one...one half...a third..._ The bug exploded internally, in a shower of chitin (word for the stuff exoskeletons are made of) and bug juice. _Ewww..._

"It exploded from the inside!" Rita exclaimed in shock.

"What did you do?" Estelle looked to Raven with wide eyes.

Raven showed her a crooked grin. "Ya just wait for 'em to let their guard down, give 'em a little poke and then...bam!"

Since I was conveniently standing off to the side and a little behind the archer, I indulged in a sudden impulse. "Poke." I jabbed him lightly with a forefinger, and he actually jumped a bit. "You're guard was down, are you gonna go 'bam'?"

"Hey! Only I'm s'possed to do that!" he protested. "And no, I won't go bam! Not from just a poke." _Ah, perverted innuendo joke, he recovers well from surprise_.

"Jeez... I bet you're great at parties," Rita said sarcastically.

Estelle smiled sweetly, "I suppose that was good enough."

Yuri had been watching this quietly, and with a slightly delayed response he asked her, "Really?"

"Yes," she told the skeptical swordsman. _One of those, 'yes dear, just do what I say' kind of exchanges_.

"All right..." Yuri shrugged and let the decision go without further argument.

"Hey, ya mean I passed? I can stay?"

"A-are you kidding...?" Karol asked in dismay, wiping bits of bug chitin and juice off his arms and weapon...

"It'll be much easier to do things to him if we keep him nearby," Yuri directed this at the newly traumatized boy, but it was for all our benefit.

"Huh, sounds like what you said when I first joined," I mused. "Though 'things' has an ominous sound to it.

"Yeah, whaddya mean 'things'...?" Raven looked kinda twitchy.

"...Hadn't thought about that." Now that she was thinking about it, a twisted and evil smile slowly spread across Rita's face.

"Okay, I just got a little chill up my spine."

Estelle bowed to him. "Well then, Mr. Raven, after you."

"Heh...right," he tried to sound unconcerned.

"Yes, walk in front where you can't see what we're doing!" I told him, and grinned at the unhappy look he gave me.

We didn't get far before the next recognizable game event occurred."Karol, what are you doing? Let's hurry up and go." Yuri gave Karol a little nudge to the back of his shoulder to keep him from completely stopping.

"Y-yeah.." Karol started edging forward again. Rita made a small, "I see what's going on" kind of noise as she watched him. A flying beetle swooped down out of nowhere, flying past Karol with a buzzing noise like a lawn mower's engine. "Waaaaaaaaahhhhh...!" The boy freaked and began flailing his ax. _Yeesh, is this why he's strong enough to use that? Used to chasing off bugs with oversized fly swatters?_ "Get away! Don't touch me! Stay back!"

"Karol, Karol, it's okay!" Estelle tried to calm him. "It already flew away."

"...Huh?" Karol blinked and saw us all watching his little freak out. He nervously tried to laugh it off, "It did... Alright, let's keep moving." He tried to pump his hand up enthusiastically, and began edging forward a little faster than before. Still pretty slow going, though.

"...Captain Karol seems a little different than usual, doesn't he?"

Rita shrugged. "You think? He seems like his usual spaced out kid self to me."

"No, something's different about him. The Karol I knew before would've been peeing his pants or running for his life if something like that happened." _Unflattering, but an accurate assessment. But he's getting a little better, and I don't think he ever really wet his pants_.

"Oh...now that you mention it, I think you're right."

We started walking again, and Raven cupped his hands and yelled, "Wah! Bugs, a giant swarm of them! Watch out!"

"Waah! Stay away, stay away, stay away...!" Karol flailed his makeshift fly swatter around, chanting his little mantra, and Rita made a disgusted noise. She grabbed something from her bag that looked like an aerosol can and sprayed it right in Raven's face.

"Blech! Hey! Wh-wh-what did you do that for... Agh, my eyes..."

"I was just giving you a little something to keep away the giant swarms of bugs!" she told him innocently. _Heheh, I love this moment where she actually gets revenge on someone for picking on Karol. She likes him, or at least more than she likes Raven right now._

Hearing the suspiciously well meaning tone of Rita's voice apparently tipped Karol off to what had really happened. He opened his eyes (apparently part of the flailing maneuver is to screw them shut tightly) and pouted back at the older man. "Ah, I don't believe it..."

Raven was still coughing, and I wasn't sure if he was overdoing it on purpose or the stuff Rita had used was really that strong. "...I thought I was gonna die!"

"Karol..." Estelle had a dawning expression of understanding and sympathy. "You're really afraid of bugs, aren't you?"

"Wh-who, me? N-not at all...!"

Rita kindly told him, "It's okay, Karol. You don't have to pretend." _Woah, this is Twilight Zone weird. Rita being nice to Karol..._ "Here, take this Aspio-brand insect spray, the best to keep the bugs away!"

"Oh, uh...y-you don't mind...?" Karol was probably equally as frightened of this nice Rita as of the bugs...

"Not at all. Just make sure not to spray it near any people. It can sting!" Innocent tone, and she didn't even look back at Raven (who was still wiping at his face with his sleeves).

"So I'm not a person anymore, am I..." he slumped dramatically. "Yeesh..."

"You kinda deserved it, it's not cool to make fun of phobias like that," I told him. Never mind the fact that Yuri and I had pulled that prank last night, that was different... Everyone else ignored him as we went on our way again, Karol clutching the bug spray like a life line.

x x x

_**Scary Things**_

_Rita: Wow, Karol, when you freak out, you really freak out!_

_Karol: Come on, everyone has a few things they're afraid of, don't they?_

_Rita: Not me._

_Raven: Now, now, genius mage, it's not nice to lie. Even ol' Raven's got his own fears._

_Yuri: What are you afraid of, old man?_

_Raven: I'm afraid of pretty girls!_

_Karol: What?_

_Yuri: Yeah, yeah... Rita, it's better to come clean. That way we can help you out._

_Rita: Like anyone needs your help! I can take care of myself just fine!_

_Raven: Her type always has some of the worst fears..._

_Rita: Yeah, whatever._

_Letha: With this group, I don't blame her for not telling._

_Rita: Of course I wouldn't tell with that stunt you guys pulled last night!_

x x x

We'd been fighting another group of mantises and beetles, everyone doing their own thing with Karol now running around spraying the bug spray at anything that got too close. I wasn't having fun, it felt like I was getting slashed to ribbons by the mantises and the drying bug...juice that got under my sleeves were making me itchy.

_Ick, ick, ick... _I cleaned my dao with a rag before putting it away. _ You know, I wonder why we're only finding two types of giant bugs. If everything in the forest is being affected by the Aer Krene, shouldn't all the bugs be giant?_ Hearing a noise behind me, I took the dao out again and turned around. Behind me was one of my worst nightmares.

"Ho _SNAP!_" I blew past the others, running like a demon was behind me. "SOMEONE KILL IT!" Chasing close on my heels was a giant centipede the size of a dog and very much _longer_. "_Kill it kill it kill it!_"

Centipedes are _fast_ little evil hell spawns. It took the others a few tries to actually hit the damned thing, and they only managed once one of Raven's arrows hit it. Once they'd managed to kill it they went to check up on me. I was panting and rubbing tears and sweat out of my face, but I didn't dare sit down to rest for fear that another would come.

"That was...unexpected," Yuri commented.

"Letha, you're afraid of bugs too?" Estelle asked with concern.

Rita rolled her eyes, "I don't have enough insect sprays for both of you."

"N-no, just centipedes, just centipedes..." I shivered and looked around wildly. "Spiders are bad too, but centipedes are much _worse_." I fixed them all with a wild eye. "As much as I love a good joke, if _any_ of you tries to pull something on me that involves centipedes, I will hold a banquet with your eyeballs as the appetizers. And blood for wine. I'll need to think about the rest of the menu." Shuddering once more, I finally got myself under enough control to start walking normally again.

Behind me I heard Raven asking, "She's kinda scary. Was that normal?"

And Yuri, "I'm starting to wonder..."

x x x

Really, a larger variety of giant bugs would make sense. And there's bound to be...shit...almost had nightmares when I thought about that last night.

And a reminder, poll in my profile, start voting on who should try to seduce the Heliord guard!


	21. Chapter 21: I Won't Move

*Sylph checks the poll* I'm surprised. Yuri had an early lead, but right now the most popular candidate to seduce the guard is Letha, with Estelle in second. Yuri is third, Karol fourth, and Judith is in last place. I'll work with the final result, whatever it is, but I'm keeping everyone updated on the poll's progress!

Rhino600: More Raven! More freak-outs coming! And in the future will be Raven related shenanigans!

Mei Fire: I'm looking forward to Judith, though I think she'll be challenging to write... But I know I'll be sad every time Raven leaves the group and breaks up the set!

x x x

Chapter 21: I Won't Move

x x x

Eventually even the plants started attacking us, with vines and pollen and spores... Most of them were burned to brittle crisps by Rita's fire. Though when the flames nearly spread from the dying monsters to the surrounding trees and plants, we begged her to be more careful before she killed us all in a forest fire.

"Idiots, like I would let that happen. Champagne!" Yes, Rita is both arsonist and firefighter. How terrifying.

I sawed with my daggers at some vines that had wrapped around my legs. "Dammit, you plants are supposed to be at the _bottom_ of the food chain! Followed by primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers are optional, and finally small organisms that break down decaying matter!"

"What the heck is she talking about?"

"Got me, Karol." _Yeah, cause you totally never paid attention in class, Yuri._

There had been one more case of a giant centipede appearing out of nowhere. It wasn't as large as the first, but still plenty larger than any bug had a right to be. I hadn't noticed it until it ran over my foot, and I shrieked and leaped behind Raven. He shot it point blank and I exclaimed, "My favorite person in the whole world!"

"I am? I mean, of course! Just stay close and I'll protect you my dear!"

"Nope, don't need it. Just keep killing the bugs with too many legs." I'd already slipped away and was dueling another mantis.

"I'm not feelin' the love."

For a while I had started to feel a building pressure in my chest again. _Ugh, we must be getting close to the aer krene_. Coincidentally, that was when Rita stopped us to give a related warning. "Try to be careful. These botanical abnormalities are being caused by the aer here. There's a good chance that there are pockets of excess aer all over the place."

Then Raven chimed in with the most intelligent contribution he'd made since showing up. "Yeah, too much aer can have negative effects on people and blastia. Takin' in a lotta aer causes yer metabolism ta speed up, and that'll make ya more tired than usual."

Rita looked at him in surprise, "Wow, you know more than I thought."

"Eh? That's just common sense!" _I wonder if Raven forgot that it's unusual for most people to know this much. Considering his condition, he's probably known about this for years_.

"I'd expect people to know about aer's effect on the human body... But I didn't think it was common knowledge that blastia can become supersaturated with aer if used improperly."_ Oooh, is that why she always flips out about people "having no respect for the blastia" when they're used for something weird?_

"Nah, anyone who deals with bodhi blastia should know all about it!" Raven told us confidently. _Yup, that's how to cover up for knowing something you shouldn't (or being somewhere you shouldn't). Act as if it's a given!_ It occurred to me that Raven would probably be able to tell when I was lying or hiding something. After all, he had ten years of experience doing just that, I was just an amateur in comparison.

"Actually, I'd never heard about it until Rita mentioned it." _Karol, you knew next to nothing about blastia before this all started_.

"Ya gotta quit slackin' and hit the books, kid!"

Yuri had a look in his eyes that I recognized. It was the look he always had when he knew I wasn't telling the truth or was holding something back. _Stonewall Yuri! Nothin' get's past you!_ He noticed me watching him, _whoops,_ and asked, "How are you holding up? Not too much aer for you yet?"

"Oh, we should have realized coming here would be hard on you!" Estelle exclaimed and hurried over to me. Thank goodness she didn't give me one of those full body checks she does when she's carried away and looking for injuries. "I'm sorry, Letha, we shouldn't have made you come with us!"

Rita scowled at me. "We didn't make her. It's her own fault if she does get sick, she should have known there'd be high concentrations of aer here. That was the whole reason we came." _Hmm, she's mad at me for being a burden, or for putting myself in harm's way without thinking. I can never tell with Rita._

"I guessed before we came it'd be like this," I told them. "It hasn't been too bad, actually, I only recently started feeling the effects." I sighed and sat down on a handy tree root. "But I don't think I can go any further, the pressure has been increasing steadily as we got deeper in. Going any further will probably be dangerous, and I'll become a burden."

"So what, you want us to just leave you here alone?"

I blinked up at Yuri. "Yes?"

"No way. We take our eyes off you and you'll get yourself in trouble again."

"Aw, you've no faith in me," I pouted. "Haven't I been a good girl? Well, except for back at the inn..."

"Wait, that was your doin'?" Raven looked at me. "Man, folks are gonna be talkin' about _that_ one fer years!"

Rita and Karol both gave me sour looks. "What? Yuri was in on it too!"

"In any case," said the master of timely changes of topics, Yuri Lowell, "it isn't safe to leave you alone where monsters could attack you at any time."

"Ah shut up already and get going." I crossed my arms and looked him in the eyes boldly. "The further I go in there, the worse it'll be for me and the more useless I'll be. Arguing when I've made up my mind will just waste time. I promise I won't move from this spot until you guys come back."

"But Letha-"

"It's fine Estelle," Yuri cut the princess off. He turned his back on me, "If that's what she wants, we'll leave her here." _...Ow. That...hurts for some reason_. He looked over his shoulder at me for a parting comment. "You better be here when we come back."

I saluted sharply, "Aye aye, sir!" _I don't get it, but I feel like there was something important just now._

Estelle hesitated before following the swordsman. "Letha...are you sure you'll be alright?"

I waved cheerily at her, "Don't worry your pretty pink head. When you come back, I'll be waiting."

She nodded reluctantly. I watched her and the others walk off, Karol occasionally looking back at me (maybe he was debating whether he should leave the bug spray with me). The tension in Rita's back suggested that she was refusing the possibility of even one glance back at me. When I couldn't see them for the trees in the way, I slumped against the tree.

"Dammit, it hurts..." I wasn't even sure if I meant the aer sickness, or having to stay behind. The moment they had left I had this anxious feeling of not being a part of the group anymore. I drew my knees up to my chest and hugged them close. "Please come back for me guys..."

After several long minutes of not moving, I fished around in the bag I'd been carrying since I'd left Ludwig's. I frowned as I reached into the pocket with my Earth belongings. _Cell without any charge, keyring, the conspicuous absence of my wallet and ID (dammit Alastor), spare batteries, and _I pulled my mp3 player out again_ the music that soothes the savage beast._

I untangled the ear buds and slipped them into my ears, hitting the power button and randomly selecting a song.

"_My best friend gave me the best advice  
He said each day's a gift and not a given right"_

I sat up straighter. "If Today Was Your Last Day," an upbeat song by Nickelback.

"_Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind  
And try to take the path less traveled by  
That first step you take is the longest stride_

_"If today was your last day  
And tomorrow was too late  
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?  
Would you live each moment like your last?  
Leave old pictures in the past  
Donate every dime you have?  
If today was your last day" _

I laughed shakily, "Sometimes I swear my player has a mind of it's own, and an uncanny ability to throw the perfect song at me."

"_Against the grain should be a way of life  
What's worth the prize is always worth the fight  
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try  
So live like you'll never live it twice  
Don't take the free ride in your own life_

_"If today was your last day  
And tomorrow was too late  
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?  
Would you live each moment like your last?  
Leave old pictures in the past  
Donate every dime you have?  
Would you call old friends you never see?  
Reminisce old memories  
Would you forgive your enemies?  
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of?  
Swear up and down to God above  
That you'd finally fall in love  
If today was your last day_

_"If today was your last day  
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?  
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars  
Regardless of who you are  
So do whatever it takes  
'Cause you can't rewind a moment in this life  
Let nothin' stand in your way  
Cause the hands of time are never on your side"  
_

"Could you say goodbye to yesterday?" I whispered to myself. I sat and thought without really even following my own thoughts as the song finished the last chorus. My player switched to something with a violin and a man singing in another language. Swedish, perhaps, I didn't know the words but I liked the calm almost prayer like quality. To my knowledge it was supposed to be a lullaby, blessing a son and wishing him things like guidance and the ability to make his own destiny. Or something like that.

Two songs...so roughly eight minutes had passed. How long would it take to find the aer krene? Would the boss monster be there? It probably was, the unstable aer made all the monsters super aggressive so they were bound to have to fight something nasty at the source. Then Duke was supposed to show up with the sword Dein Nomos, and fix everything.

Another song, a techno remix of something from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. Now wouldn't that have sucked, being pulled into Final Fantasy VII? All those times I'd have to fight Jenova, and simply the idea of fighting Sephiroth would make me run to the hills screaming.

"What are you doing here? Isn't there somewhere else you should be?" I jerked the ear buds out of my ears and looked around wildly. "Up, silly child, look up." I did, and there was Alastor standing on a branch above my head. He was leaning against the trunk as casually as if he were on the ground.

"You are the last person I want to see right now," I grumbled moodily. "You're worse than a black cat, every time I see you I get into trouble somehow."

"Your conversation is as charming as always."

"Fuck you, fairy man!" _I may like exchanging witty banter with friends, but I have no patience to do so with this guy!_

He smirked, "Well, at least you were able to make that much progress." There was a distortion of the air behind him, and then a pair of fairy wings materialized on his back. Red wings with blue edges and vein like tracings of blue. "It's quite the relief to not hide them anymore." He removed the glasses that had been perched on his nose, and they evaporated in his hand.

"Just get to the point already, what do you want with me?"

Alastor rested his chin in one hand and gave a long suffering sigh. "Oh dear, still saying that? I've already told you, I want you to use Sophia's notes."

"Tch, if that's what you want, then why don't you tell me how to get the stupid case open..."

"What? It won't open?" There was genuine surprise in his voice. A second later he'd jumped down to the ground, wings beating gently to soften the landing. Landing in front of me, he reached out a hand. "Let me see."

I clutched my bag close, "No."

The red head scowled at me, "This isn't the time to be a petulant child. Let me see the notes!"

"You had your chance when they were in Ragou's mansion! Too bad for you, but they're mine now!" I aimed a kick at his knee, though it fell short since I refused to leave my seat. "And give back my wallet you petty pick pocket!"

We were caught in a stale mate, glaring into each other's eyes (gray vs brown!), until he gave an exasperated, "Very well then." Closing his eyes and running a hand through his messy hair to recompose himself. "Find the means of opening it on your own, then. But it would have simplified matters if you'd let me look at it." He snapped his fingers and was gone in a blink of an eye.

I stared at the empty space he'd occupied just a second before. "Are all fairies daft in the head? What is up with these showy entrances and exits?" No longer in the mood to enjoy my music, I powered down my mp3 player and put it away again. "Just what did that guy mean, 'there's somewhere else I should be'?"

_...Shoot, I forgot he has pieces of the heirloom!_ I stamped a foot angrily and fumed to myself. _He didn't have them with him this time, or else my tattoo would have reacted. So what did he do with them?_

The light thump of footsteps on the ground worked into my thoughts, and I looked up half expecting to see some other fairy showing up to pester me. Reality hit me hard as I gaped at the tall albino walking down the path towards me.

Long, long white hair (longer than even mine has ever been), red eyes, and a showy red sword. Yeah, it was Duke. He was following the same path we'd taken to get this far. When he'd come even with me, he stopped to look down. "What is a human doing in a place like this?" _There's the deep monotone we all know!_ It was even weirder to hear that voice coming from that effeminate face in person.

"I'm waiting for some people." I waved my hand at the path ahead of him. "The aer krene doesn't agree with me, so I'm hanging out back here til they're done looking around."

"You know of the aer krene?"

_Umm, maybe I should have kept that to myself..._ "Yeah, well, I only know that I get terrible aer sickness if I get too close to them. Pretty much all I know..."

Duke was staring at me, and of course if there's no emotion in his voice then there is none in his face. _What is this guy thinking?_ "If that is so, then you should leave now." _Oh, I could have guessed that._

"No can do. I promised."

"Hmm." He turned away and continued towards the aer krene. "Then once your friends return, leave immediately."

I waved at his retreating back, "Sure thing, your excellency." If he'd heard, he didn't acknowledge me. I was left alone to wonder what the proper term of address for a duke really was, and if my joke had failed utterly.

x x x

It was maybe an hour later. For a while I'd taken the note case out, tapping at it and trying to pry at imagined cracks in the etched designs with my nails. Finally I had to admit defeat and put it away again, with no better idea of the trick needed to open it.

Having gotten bored and wanting to fight off the drowsiness from not sleeping enough the night before, I collected all the stones and small pieces of forest detritus within reach and was practicing my throwing arm. I'd chosen an especially warped looking branch across the path as my target.

_Whhhhhhzz_ The rock flew over the branch. "Damn..." _Whhhhhzz_ It was too low. "Come on..." _Whhhz-crack!_ "Yay! I hit the trunk next to it!"

"You really are still here..."

"Woah!" my throw went wide and a large walnut (well, it looked kinda like one) disappeared into the branches. Duke watched passively. "Um, yeah, I promised my friends after all, and they're not back yet."

He listened wordlessly, and then walked past back the way he'd first come from. _Sheesh, this place is surprisingly busy. But if Duke's leaving, then the aer krene should be stabilized and the others will come back soon..._ I placed a hand on my chest. I hadn't even noticed when the pressure in my chest had gone away. Was I just getting accustomed to the bouts of pain?

Yawning, I idly tossed another rock (it clattered to the ground only a few feet away) and watched the path ahead. _Any minute now..._ My eyes slipped closed. _Right? They're all okay, and they'll come back for me..._ I fell into a light doze leaning against the tree who's roots I'd been sitting on.

"Hey, wake up."

"Mmm, dun wanna..."

"Come on, we gotta go."

"Nnno, promised t' wait here..."

"Looks like she's pretty out of it."

"Maybe we should carry her for awhile?" _Whazzat?_

"Ya say that, but it's gonna be me or the kid that does the work, isn't it?"

"Thanks for volunteering, old man." _Wait...did someone say...?_

"What? You really know how to take advantage of a guy, don't ya." Suddenly I felt a pair of arms lifting me up. It shocked my eyes open, and I swung my legs _up_, and then reversed the motion to bring them back down with all the momentum I'd created. The result was me standing upright, though a bit wobbly and blinking in confusion, and Raven falling over backwards as he lost his balance.

"Umm, I'm up?" I said sheepishly. The others stared at me in surprise. "Well come on, what do you expect from someone who studied Aikido?"

Yuri gave a little snort of laughter, "Hey old man, looks like you don't have to carry anyone after all."

"Ugh, great..."

"Ahh, sorry about that Raven..." I helped pull the older man back to his feet.

"Looks like we didn't need to worry about you after all." Estelle clapped her hands and smiled happily.

"Yeah, all this time we thought you'd be dealing with aer sickness and monsters, but here you are just sleeping the whole time!"

"Hey! I was awake nearly the whole time!" I protested to Rita. "Though for some reason I didn't see even a single monster... And then the effects of the aer sickness suddenly went away." I tacked that last part on as insurance, since I wasn't supposed to know about the aer krene and what happened with Duke.

"That must have been when that guy used the sword to calm the imbalance of aer," Rita muttered to herself.

"But if the aer wasn't bothering you anymore," Karol looked up at me, "why didn't you try to catch up with us?"

I stared at him blankly, "What? I promised to stay here, didn't I? If I'd wandered off to look for you guys and got lost, what would you all think if you came back and I was gone?"

"Well, looks like our troublemaker managed to stay out of trouble just fine, so let's go." Yuri smiled at us in a big brotherly way, then his eyes seemed to focus on something behind me. "Hey Letha, don't turn around..."

"Huh?" I looked behind me, and saw another centipede crawling down the tree I'd been leaning against. "_SHIT!_" The others had to run to catch up with me.

x x x

_**Selective Phobia**_

_Karol: Hey Letha, why do you get scared of centipedes, but are fine with all the other bugs?_

_Letha: Can't really explain that well. It's practically genetic._

_Karol: What do you mean?_

_Letha: Well, my mom was afraid of centipedes, and apparently so was my grandma. So I can't even bear to be in the same room with one._

_Karol: Gosh... Hey, this is the first time you talked about your parents._

_Letha: Oh, uh, w-well that's 'cause I don't really remember anything about them. I started living with my aunt and uncle when I was pretty young._

_Karol: Then how'd you know what your mother was afraid of?_

_Letha: I dunno, I guess someone told me, and then I realized I hated them to. Anyway, other bugs don't bother me as much because I don't seem to have the same instinctive fear of them._

_Karol: That's pretty weird..._

x x x

Since we had to walk back the entire way we'd come, and on top of all the walking and fighting I'd had deficient sleep, I was pretty wiped out. Rita had been talking nonstop under her breath about aer anomalies and distortions and other things related to her research. The most important thing was that the screwy stuff that aer did in Heliord and Keiv Moc was supposedly happening elsewhere in the world. (Duke told her that.) Listening to her, I had the feeling that when I finally got to sleep I'd be having dreams about Professor Rita's lectures.

Raven was the only who commented, being the least accustomed to the eccentric little mage. "You sure mumble to yourself a lot, don't you?"

We were nearly out of the abnormally overgrown section of the woods when the ground rumbled like a minor earthquake had hit. "Ack, what?" Karol cowered behind a fallen log (the size of a child's play house). "Another monster attack?" Rather than tease Karol, we all scrambled and jumped behind the log with him.

A swarm of bugs passed by overhead and around us, but none noticed us or stopped to attack. "Karol, keep your head down!" Yuri said sharply while pulling the boy down before he could peek over the side. I whimpered a bit. A large spider (small in comparison to the monsters though, roughly the size of a tarantula) crawled from out of nowhere over my shoulder and was gone again. I sat frozen stiff.

Apparently Estelle at least noticed. "Letha? What's wrong?"

"Flashback...traumatic childhood flashback..." Once, while camping, I'd been sitting on my bed writing in a journal. Movement out of the corner of my had made me look up to see a big old spider sitting on my pillow. I'd reacted much the same way then, sitting without moving an inch and (apparently sounding very calm about the whole matter) calling for my mom to come help. That was from the time we went to visit..._who?_

_Dammit, I hate this! I know that person was very important to me! To the whole family! But I can't remember why!_ This was bad. Before it was only the names of people and places I had trouble with, but now I was struggling to even remember the people I couldn't match any name to. I'd been grasping at everything I could remember, no matter how random and unrelated to the situation at hand, to assure myself that I still knew my real life. But how much was fading away that I didn't even realize I'd lost?

"Are you okay?" _Huh? Oh right, spider trauma._

"Yeah, I'm fine. It wasn't a centipede so, just give me a minute to get my spine to stop trying to run away..."

Taking a steadying breath, I crawled back out from behind our shelter. The others were up again and staring with awe (though Raven and Yuri were more like interested observation) at the group of people who'd appeared in the wake of the swarm. They looked pretty worn out, as if they'd been fighting nonstop battles all day...

"It's...it's them..." Estelle murmured.

"Don...!" Karol exclaimed as happily as a five year old meeting Santa.

The big white bear of an old man (yes, that's what he reminds me of. That or a yeti.) grunted to acknowledge that he'd seen us. "...You all do something?"

While Karol was all starry eyed over the fact that ohmygosh-the-Don-was-talking-to-us, Yuri calmly asked "Do something? What do you mean?"

The big man pushed himself out of his kneeling position to stand strong on his feet again. "Those savage monsters turned docile as pups and ran off! What did you do?"

"...Yuri, it must be because we stopped the flow of the aer..." _...How do these people come to these conclusions? Whitehorse decides that since we happened to be here we're the ones responsible. Estelle concludes that it's because the aer krene isn't spitting up excess aer. Not that they're wrong...but come on!_ The cynic in me was annoyed.

Following was a conversation about runaway aer, the Don's friend Belius of Nordopolica (who he said would probably know about that, which she does), and the Don lecturing Karol that heroic deeds aren't done for the sake of bragging rights. Estelle, of course, ran away half way through to heal people.

While Karol was still reeling with awe and dismay, the Don noted the member of our party who'd tried to inconspicuously work his way into the background. "...Hmm? Ain't that Raven over there? Quit hidin', you!"

"Humph," Raven tried to maintain his dignity while untangling himself from a bush that had turned out to have thorns.

Don Whitehorse looked to Yuri, the clear leader of our little posse, "Our man ain't givin' you trouble, is he?"

"Whaddaya mean, 'trouble'?" the man in question broke in. "The reason the monsters got tame was our doing, mine especially!"

Karol came back down to Earth, er, Terca Lumireis, "Huh? Raven's a member of Altosk?"

"Somehow that seems to be the case," Yuri accepted easily.

The Don suddenly socked the archer in the stomach with the hilt of his sword. Though the blow wasn't as heavy as it could have been, Raven jumping back so the hit wasn't too heavy. "Ouch, gramps, cut that out!" _Huh, Raven actually referring to someone else as old... How old is the Don anyway?_

"Shut up, you!" _Abusive parent type much? Nah, just tough love..._ Yuri stepped forward to try and direct the conversation to the Blood Alliance and getting help retrieving the aque blastia core from Barbos(sa!). But that's when the universe's questionable sense of humor and timing sent one of the Don's lackeys running up to him with a message we didn't hear. Fortunately though, the swordsman did get the promise of "If ya come by the Union you'll have my ear the first chance I get."

"If I have your word, that's fine by me."

The big man studied Yuri for a moment. "Hmph, you're not nervous at all to talk to me. You all would make a good addition to our guild." _Yay! Yuri actually gave an authority figure a _good_ impression!_

Whitehorse returned to his waiting men, bellowing instructions and quickly organizing them to leave. "Guild, huh," said Yuri in a speculative tone.

Karol looked up at him hopefully. "We're going to make one, right?" _Yeah, he brought that up with Yuri back in...Heliord, right? Though I wasn't actually part of that conversation._

"We'll see," was the only reply the little guild ace got.

"So, what do you think? Y'all finally get a taste of how awesome I am?" Raven boasted to us.

While Raven and Karol debated this point, Yuri informed the group at large that he wanted to get back to Dahngrest for that appointment with the Don, and Estelle told Rita that they should go talk to Alexei after that was over with. I realized that I needed a new goal for myself, or at least something I could tell them if they asked what my own plans were. Things were going to get hectic in Danhgrest for awhile, and we'd finally have our epic fight with the pirate wannabe Barbos(sa) on top of a trippy tower made of gears. But then there'd be a brief lull where everyone would think the journey had ended and we'd split our separate ways.

Logically, if I was the person who I had claimed to be, I'd probably travel to the next city I could to search for my "aunt's" ruins, or concentrate on finding a way to read her notes. So what excuse could I use for sticking with them until Phaeroh showed up to get the next phase of the plot rolling? And when they did set out on the road again, would it be a given that I'd go with them?

I thought so, but a cynical voice in the back of my head nagged that nothing was ever guaranteed.

x x x

Hummm, this was fun up to a certain point, then it got kinda tedious... More random Letha, more bug related shenanigans, more game plot. Better stuff should start happening in the next chapters.

I've been meaning to ask about this, I've heard Karol has a fear of thunder? I don't recall that coming up in the playthrough, but I've seen it mentioned in various fanfics. Is that a liberty writers have been taking since Karol is still a child, or did I just miss that part of the game?


	22. Chapter 22: The Spark That Starts A War

Sylph: ...You've all been waiting for this, right? You're all gonna be mad at me for taking so long, _right?_ *Hides behind Alastor* You have to get through Al before you can lynch me!

Alastor: Your irregular sleeping habits are getting to you again, aren't they?

Sylph: ...Probably.

Well, I kept waffling on how this chapter should be, and it kept changing on me. Finally I decided to throw this progression of events down, and once finished I thought I'd run with it. But there might be some rougher spots since it kept changing...

As for the poll: Letha's in the lead, Yuri's in second with Estelle a close third, Karol is fourth, and no one has voted for Judith.

x x x

Chapter 22: The Spark That Starts a War

x x x

It was far too late in the day to even think of going back to Dahngrest, so once we were out of the aer affected part of Keiv Moc we set up camp. While waiting for dinner to be made (Rita's turn, I prayed she'd cook it properly instead of trying to give us raw eggs on bread) I pulled out a notebook the Arcturus inn keeper had given me. Yeah, from before they found out what I wanted all that paper for. My old one had gotten waterlogged and worthless at some point...

I skipped the first few pages, planning to write some random, light hearted stuff on those later in case someone looked. Whatever it was I'd use the Tercan Lumireis writing system for that. What I was doing now, though, was trying to capture the important parts of my life.

I started with where I was born, the time, how mom had told me the doctors hadn't believed it was time but she refused to leave. How my name, whatever it was, was something she'd wanted to name a daughter for a long time.

I wrote about my home, and how the house and land had changed over the years. How my dad was always working on it somehow, so you couldn't tell it was over a hundred and twenty years old. How my brothers and I had rotated bedrooms so that we'd all have a turn in the private room and sharing the larger room until I was old enough to need privacy.

I wrote about my best friend who was like another daughter in my house.

I wrote about school, from the few scraps I remembered of preschool up to college.

I wrote about the trips my family took every summer until my brothers and I were old enough to get part time jobs.

Any time I thought of some random memory that I always laughed at, I wrote it down regardless of what I'd just been writing.

The words all flowed onto the pages, scratchy and blotchy in some places since I wasn't used to nib pens. I felt relief at forming the familiar letters from Earth. It wouldn't do to have anyone understand what I wrote, and as a little extra precaution I even kept switching randomly from regular print to cursive. Sometimes I'd even switch some words with other languages, but I didn't dare do that too much just in case I forgot my language classes...

Eventually I flipped to the back of the notebook and summarized the fake life I'd told everyone was mine, making notes on what had been told to who.

_**My name here is Letha Vitae. My father was Sirius Vitae, he and my mother died when I was only two, so I don't remember them at all. Sirius was not on great terms with his older brother, Ludwig Vitae, so they didn't know much about each other's business.**_

_**I was raised by my Uncle Ludwig. My aunt, Sophia Vitae, died when I was about four or five, so I don't remember her well either. I lived in the forest near the Shaikos Ruins all my life, and everything I learned about the world came from Ludwig and the books Sophia left behind.**_

_**Not long before Sophia died, she brought back a strange relic from one of her research trips. Toddler-me played with it, and somehow it gave me a tattoo on my left hand that glows at times for no apparent reason. The original relic went missing, and now I'm looking for it or the place it came from to find out more about it.**_

_**I told Yuri that Ludwig found me when I was a child and adopted me. And that I could remember some things from my original life, but most was holes. When he asked about the tattoo I claimed they'd found me just before Sophia brought back that relic. I also told him Alastor may or may not be related to why I'd been taken from my real home and lost my memories. The others haven't heard this explanation.**_

"What have you been writing all this time?"

I looked up and saw Estelle had come over with plates in hand. I closed my notebook as I accepted my share. "It's nothing much, I was just, um, practicing..." _Yeeeah, of course the bookworm is the one interested. I was thinking of telling the others I was writing down some of the stories I know, but if I told Estelle she'd want to read them._

"Practicing?"

"Um, I saw an interesting looking writing system once in my aunt's books, so I spent some time trying to learn it. Mostly for fun. I was practicing it just now..." _Safe! Now they shouldn't get too suspicious even if they see inside!_

"Really? May I see?"

I blew on a spoonful of some kind of soup (hoping it was edible...the others were eating already). "Knock yourself out."

"What?"

"Means 'yes'."

"Oh, alright!" She put her soup aside and carefully began flipping the pages of my notebook. "Wow, I've never seen writing like this before. What civilization was it used by?"

"Um, don't remember..."

"Could you teach me?" _Crap, should've seen that coming._

"I'm not sure we have the time..." Her face fell as she was reminded that she'd have to return to the capitol soon. "Ah! I mean, of course! Not now, but I'll come see you at the castle and I can teach you then!" _Oh dear, now I've gone and made a promise I'm afraid of keeping_.

Estelle's eyes were sparkling, "Really? Thanks so much!" _Oh well, she'll be the only one who can read it and she's not the type to snoop through other people's stuff_. If I had a younger sister like Estelle I'd spoil her. Come to think of it, if I had a little sister there's good odds she'd be like either Estelle or Rita. _Holy crap_.

She gave the notebook back and I slipped it inside my bag, hoping I seemed casual about it.

"Hey, Letha, I hope you're not getting the princess involved in another of your schemes," Yuri called to us from the fire.

"No worries, we're only planning to draw on your face when you fall asleep tonight."

"We are?" the princess asked in confusion.

I shrugged, "If you want to."

"Hey!"

x x x

The others were talking about Duke and the Don, but I decided to turn in for bed early. Not much else I could do, talking might risk giving something away and writing might invite more unwanted curiosity.

Karol had set up two tents (same drill, boys in one, girls in another) so I curled up in one. Since the barrier thing that comes with tents to keep monsters away only works once the tents themselves are pretty simply designed. But they're also nicely made and new looking. I had to wonder if there's some assembly line for mass producing them...maybe even something to do with those warehouses in every city. I lay on my side, using my rolled up Earth clothes for a pillow, and stared at the canvas wall.

_Tents...this is pretty comforting and nostalgic._ I closed my eyes. _Knowing I'm in a tent, I can almost pretend I'm back on Earth and on trip. Maybe turning in after a night of playing black jack and betting with peanuts..._ It wasn't long before I fell asleep.

_Seagulls were gliding over the water and hopping along the beach of wave smoothed stones. The sun hung low on the horizon, creating a vivid sunset. I happily watched the shapes of the clouds, thinking how nice it would be to try and paint them. Clouds are surprisingly complex subjects._

_There was a seagull flying low over my head and it suddenly swooped towards me. I ducked and covered my head, but it made another pass with another seagull. In moments I was being attacked by what seemed to be the whole flock. I tried running away but my legs wouldn't move. When I flung my arms out to try and bat them away, one flew directly towards my face._

_I fell back, trying to avoid it, and now I could see that the seagulls had changed. Their wings had become delicate and colorful like butterflies, but their beaks had become the hooked and sharp edged weapons of birds of prey. Covering my head again I tried to scream for help, but no matter how loud I was no sound came out._

I was staring at the canvas wall of the tent again. Judging by the faint light it was nearly dawn. Behind me I could hear the sounds of two people breathing softly in their sleep. Sitting up, I looked down at Estelle and Rita. Both of the younger girls looked peaceful, Rita's posture was even reminiscent of a snoozing cat. After watching them for a few minutes, I settled down to will myself back to sleep for another hour or so. _No more dreams, please..._

x x x

Returning to Dahngrest was practically a walk in the park without having to deal with Karol and my bug related phobias anymore. Even without Karol going into hyper spastic fly swatting mode or me running off in all directions when something with a hundred legs showed up, it still took nearly the whole day to get back to civilization.

Walking back into the guild city, I stretched my arms up high. "Ahh, back where the bugs are regular stomping size." _But before long, shit will hit the fan and we'll have an impending war on our hands. Aww, we're gonna have a long night on our hands..._

Yuri was all about getting down to about business. "Let's go to the union headquarters now, I want to have that talk with the Don as soon as possible." I sighed. Well, it wasn't like Yuri and I had a place to sleep in this town.

_UUUUUGH! Why must I have no will to resist pranks? I'mma gonna hafta sleep in the streets like a bum! Yuri at least will get a bed in a cell._

I was still sulking over this Yuri and Raven led the way to the Don's receiving room. As expected (for me) Flynn was already there. Whitehorse leaned forward, one arm on his knee, and fixed Yuri with a sharp look. "So you've come back, have ya?"

Flynn turned to see who the Don was talking to. His knight's poker face was cracked by surprise, "...Yuri."

The gruff man looked from the knight to us again. "What, you two know each other?" He nodded to Raven, who silently walked across the room to stand by the bear-man's throne thingy.

Flynn turned back to him, straight faced again. _Jeez, he could make a killing playing cards_. "Yes, we're old friends..."

"Ya don't say."

"I see you know Yuri as well. I did hear that he caused some...trouble here the other day." I coughed and looked away as Flynn indirectly brought up what had to be the Grand Inn Prank. _Whoops, my bad again_.

"We crossed paths during the assault on the city. But what's this about some trouble?"

Some lackey standing by the wall stepped forward a bit. "Mr Lowell and Miss Vitae, who is hiding in the back there," I sheepishly stepped forward again, "are the ones behind that mischief the Arcturus inn keeper was going on about before."

Whitehorse slapped a knee and guffawed. "Ha! Don't know what that ol' stiff wanted me ta do about it. He needs to loosen up anyway." The guildsman stepped back again and gave me a quick wink. _...Hey, I think he's one of the guys who let us borrow his flare cape_. "Now then, what business did ya have?"

Having lost his own thunder, Flynn looked down a little as Yuri stepped up for the center of attention. "We came to ask you about a man named Barbos of the Blood Alliance. It looks like he's the one behind the recent string of stolen blastia cores."

"I see, so Barbos is tied up in your problems as well," Flynn said seriously.

"...You have a problem with him, too?"

Flynn nodded slightly to Yuri before turning back to the Don. "We have come to ask that the Union relinquish all ties with the Blood Alliance. Other guilds have begun to follow Barbos' example, abusing blastia in other areas and disrupting the order of society."

I wanted to yell, "At ease, soldier," at Flynn so bad. He needed to lighten up almost as much as the inn keeper. But he kept rolling on with his (probably preprepared) speech. "If we can count on your assistance, I fell that together we should move to put an end to the Blood Alliance."

"Why don't we just find some creepy little kid to wish them all away to the corn field?" I muttered to myself. Karol and Rita were close enough to overhear, and they both gave me weird looks. "Don't ask, I'm not sure I remember the whole story." First episode I saw of a Twilight Zone marathon. Freaked me out when I was a kid.

Meanwhile Whitehorse and Flynn were talking politics. Not my sort of thing. And I already knew what the point of the whole thing and how it would turn out. Blah blah blah, make an alliance, put Barbos(sa) in his place, equal status between empire and guild union. Whitehorse orders someone to send a message to Belius telling her to get Nordopolica in on it too.

Finally, "I've brought a letter from his Highness Ioder," Flynn knelt before the Don to present Ioder's letter. _Ioder is pretty much emperor in all but name already. And oh goody, STUFF is gonna happen!_ It had always bothered me...why does Flynn give him the letter _after_ the Don agreed? Wouldn't it make more sense to give him a letter while the Don was undecided to use as trump to persuade him?

"A secret note from the imperial candidate, huh?" The Don examined it for a moment before holding it in front of Raven's face. "Read it aloud." _Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, read us a story Uncle Raven!_

"If Don Whitehorse is taken out of the picture, we are willing to overlook the Union's responsibility in the Barbos affair."

Flynn's head snapped up in shock. "What...?"

Whitehorse roared with insincere laughter. "Don't make me laugh!" Estelle was gripping her hands, as if praying that their was a mistake and the Don was just pulling a mean spirited prank.

Raven casually handed the letter back to Flynn, who stared at it in his shaking hands. "...What...what is this?"

The Don growled at the blond knight. "Looks like you and the young master see things a bit differently."

"There must be some mistake! Master Ioder would never say such a thing."

"Show our guest here to his own private suite!" _Man, sounds like this world doesn't care about the saying "Don't kill the messenger." Though it does make sense in this case..._

"Don Whitehorse, please listen to me! This is some sort of trap!" The guards ignored Flynn as they grabbed him by his arms and pulled him away.

"Flynn!" Estelle cried, but Yuri held the princess back and shook his head at her. "Why would you...?"

"Hang on. If we screw up, it'll only make things worse for Flynn."

The Don stood up as he declared, "All-out war with the empire! We'll take everything we've got and march on the imperial capital! Try and make a fool out of me? I'll tear these little messengers limb from limb." He stormed out of the room (and we scattered to get out of his way), Raven and his own grandson Harry close on his heels.

_I had a skeptical feeling about the Don's behavior when I first saw this scene. Such a complete one-eighty, I had the nagging suspicion that he was up to something_.

"Th-this is bad!" Karol fidgeted uselessly, not knowing how to deal with the unbelievable scene we'd been witness to.

Rita crossed her hands and watched as the door slammed behind the Don. "And it looks like he's forgotten all about talking with us."

Yuri seemed resigned to the setback in our plans. "I don't think the Don's in much of a talking mood right now."

"Yup, he looks like he's having way too much fun." Half way through I remembered to add a sarcastic twist to my words.

"I have to return to the empire and find out what's really going on!" our princess exclaimed.

"I said hang on," the swordsman stopped her with the steel in his voice. _How poetic that sounds_. "We should sit still for now and see what happens."

"I...I suppose you're right."

Without anymore reason to hang out in the Union's building we all walked out with a near palpable air of dejection.

x x x

_***Skit***_

_Estelle: I cannot believe that Ioder would give a letter like that to Flynn. There must be some mistake!_

_Rita: We've met His Highness, too, and he certainly didn't seem like that kind of person._

_Letha: Far too timid._

_Karol: But you heard the letter—it said to take Don Whitehorse out of the picture!_

_Letha: Don't believe everything you read, or hear, so easily. Humans are deceitful by nature, and letters don't have any problems with lying to people._

_Yuri: So maybe it was sent by someone who wants to throw a wrench into what Ioder and Flynn are doing._

_Rita: But that's nothing more than a hunch right now._

_Yuri: Yeah, you're right. The only thing we know for sure right now is that Flynn is in trouble._

x x x

About a street away Yuri began to make a show of checking his pockets. "Huh...? That's strange."

Karol looked back at him. "What's the matter, Yuri?"

"...It looks like I dropped my wallet somewhere."

"At a time like this?"

I folded my arms behind my head. "Life often works that way. And bad things come in threes, or so I've heard."

Yuri shrugged a bit at my comment. "Maybe it fell out of my pocket at the Don's place? I'm going to go look. You wait here."

Karol nodded back, "O-okay. Don't take too long." Yuri gave a negligent wave as he walked back towards the Union.

A few minutes after he left I stretched my arms and then let them drop to my sides. "Why don't y'all go ahead to the inn, and I'll go find him and let him know that's where we're waiting."

Estelle looked hesitant, "Are you sure? Yuri said we should wait for him here."

"In a place that big, it could take him awhile. 'Specially if someone else picked up his wallet. I might as well give him a hand."

"Alright, we'll wait for you both there." As the others started to walk away. I called out one last time.

"By the way, since Yuri and I aren't exactly welcome there right now, don't worry to much if we don't show up soon. We probably found somewhere else to spend the night." _Like a prison, whoo!_

After poking around the Union building for a bit, I found the stairs leading down towards the basement. _Why aren't there guards? Oh right, Yuri pointed that out, and it's because the Don had sent them away. Since he had his own reasons for wanting Flynn to get out._ While I was looking around to make sure no one happened to be passing by, Flynn came up the stairs. He pulled up short in surprise. "Miss Vitae, what...?"

I shushed him with a finger at my lips. "No biggie, I just hate to be left behind to wait. Plus I figure Yuri will get antsy if he has to sit in one place too long."

Flynn laughed softly. "So you're going to keep him company? But then you'll be in trouble as well when you're both found in my place."

I shrugged. "Innocent before proven guilty? Ah whatever, despite the show before, I doubt someone as experienced as the Don will be so hasty. And no one has to know I ran into you." I shrugged again and tried to usher him towards the main entrance (also conveniently guard free). "You got more important things to do than worrying about how a crazy girl spends her free time."

"Yes, I suppose this should be expected from the orchestrator of the affair at the inn." He smiled a bit and nodded as I grinned.

"Though I don't see why everyone's making a big deal out of one prank," I muttered as he cautiously slipped out the front door.

I skipped down the stairs and walked along the line of cells. "Yoohoo! Yuri!"

"Letha?" Another three cells down... "What the hell are you doing down here?"

"Well it's not like I can wait for you in an inn that won't let me set one foot inside its door." I sat down against the wall across from his cell. He was looking at me like I was crazy. "And yes, you are that predictable. Taking the place of your best friend on pain of death? Totally like that story 'The Legend of Sinbad'." I thought about that a bit and then amended it with, "Well, actually, you're more like Sinbad's character than the prince, so it's like the story had its main roles reversed." I was referencing that animated version of the movie that came out years ago. Don't know the original legends for that one.

He shook his head in disbelief. "You really couldn't think of any thing better to do?"

"Oh I probably could, but I've never been inside a prison before and figured that since you have you might be bored already." He stared at me without response. "Okay, okay. Really, I can't say why. But the situation right now is a bit...delicate. What with war about to break out and all. If I went to stay somewhere by myself and something big happens I'll be cut off from the rest of you. Thought that might be a bit risky."

"Alright, I can accept that." There was a moment of silence between us. "So how were you planning to keep us from getting bored?"

"Umm, well I seem to have forgotten to bring a deck of cards, so losing to you at poker is out. So that leaves us with either spilling personal stories about our childhoods or me rambling about various other stories I've read."

"Like the one with the cats?"

"Yup. Though I could tell something with more action and sword fights if you like."

"Great." He shifted a bit, probably the cold of the stone floor getting to him. God knows why, but he was sitting on the floor despite having a bed handy. "Hey, I was wondering about something." I made a questioning humming sound. "When Estelle was asking about your notebook, you said it was written in an old civilization's writing system? Was that from the same people as that weird song from before? The dead one?"

"Damn, you hear everything and remember the oddest little details, don't you?" I sat quietly for a moment, and finally decided that telling him this much wouldn't hurt. "No, the language the song is written in is much, much older. If you looked hard enough you could find similarities, but not enough to say they're the same."

"Huh... If you say it that way, it sounds like the two are related." _The devil's in the details..._

I gave him the point, "Yeah, they are."

"A clue to your former life then?"

"Probably not."

"Something you're not telling me?"

"Yes, there is." _Let's not insult Yuri's intelligence any more._

"And it's gonna stay that way, isn't it?" I nodded. "Anything you will tell me?"

"The song...the song is kinda like a prayer." I scratched my head. "I think the words are originally used in some sort of religious ceremony or something, but they're also used in a bunch of different forms of music. I like this lullaby version best, the words are easy to remember and sing."

"That doesn't really explain much."

"So sorry. But I really can't tell you a lot about my old life. My memory has so many holes you could use it as a strainer."

"Hmm." A longer period of quiet this time. "Hey, what was that story you were talking about earlier?"

"The Legend of Sinbad? It's about a pirate." So I began telling him about how Sinbad the pirate and his childhood friend the prince (whose name I don't remember, so I called him Delonius and hoped I was at least close) met again on opposite sides. Sinbad tried to steal a magical, peace granting book, Delonius was all, "Dude, that's not cool," and then the argument was moot when a sea monster attacked.

The part I'd been referring to earlier was when the book was stolen by a Goddess of Chaos (Aeries? Something like that?) and everyone blamed Sinbad. Believing that his old friend was telling the truth, Delonius takes his place as prisoner and Sinbad is told to either retrieve the book or return empty handed and take his punishment. If he did neither, the prince would die in his place.

"That prince actually believed someone he'd fought with over that book?"

"Well, Sinbad was telling the truth when he said he was innocent. I guess maybe the prince had a knack for knowing his lies from the truth? At the very least, he trusted in the man he knew Sinbad had once been enough to bet his life on this."

"Huh."

"So anyway, at first Sinbad really did consider just sailing off to some remote island where no one would find him-"

"Some friend."

"-_But_ the prince's fiancée had a few things to say about that..."

x x x

I spent a good long time telling Yuri about all the adventures Sinbad and his crew encountered on their quest to find the book. Making sure to concentrate more on the action than the mushy romance parts. I like a good bit of romance (not overdone) but that didn't seem like Yuri's cup of tea.

Any one who's seen the movie knows that in the end the Goddess of Chaos tells Sinbad she'll give him the book if he answers her question truthfully, then asks if he'd actually return to die instead of Delonius if he didn't get the book. He says yes, she says "you lie!" and poof! quest failed. Game over, try again.

Yuri made a face, "That sucks."

"Don't it? And Sinbad felt really terrible that he'd gotten so far only to be told he didn't really care." Before I could tell him the happy ending, the door up the stairs opened and we heard heavy feet on the stone steps. "Oh, looks like Whitehorse finally found some time to spare."

The big man swaggered over to Flynn's former cell, Yuri's current pad, and my little spot against the wall. Looked between us with an expression fitting for someone who'd just been told the world is actually flat, or maybe donut shaped...

He settled on talking to Yuri first. "Taking your friend's place in a jail cell? You lost your mind, son?"

"I'm starting to wonder myself," said Yuri with a glance at me.

"Aw don't worry. Sinbad actually did go back so Delonius didn't have to go under the ax, and almost died like he was supposed to. Which forced the Goddess to show up, keep him from being executed, and return the book like she'd promised since he'd been honest. Happy endings all around!"

"That's reassuring." Yuri said dryly and then gave his full attention to the Don. "Though considering you got rid of your own guards on purpose, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Flynn and I are probably safer than that prince in Letha's story."

"Hump. I had a special favor ta ask that rookie knight," Whitehorse rumbled. "The rats that plan these sorta stunts usually like ta enjoy their handiwork from somewhere nearby."

"If you knew the letter was fake, why'd you fire everyone up like that?"

"If I didn't make a good show of things, whoever's behind all this wouldn't bother ta come watch. Besides, we've got a lot of hotheads around here who'd never let me hear the end of it if I didn't raise hell. So that's where it stands. Of course if our friend the knight doesn't show up again, your life is mine."

"I know." Yuri's answer was grim and serious.

I raised a hand, "What about my life? I mean, it's not like I don't trust Flynn to get back, but two for the price of one seems a bit unbalanced."

"What are ya doin' down here anyway?"

"I like the atmosphere. It's good for ghost stories."

The Don laughed and slapped a hand on my shoulder. "I see, yer that girl from the inn, then! Could use more people with a good sense of humor at times like this."

"Hmm, I've never been sure I could say my sense of humor is 'good'. Most people just tell me I'm weird." Chuckling still, Whitehorse turned and started to walk back out of the prison.

"Tell me one thing, though," Yuri called to him, bringing back some of the seriousness my contribution had taken from the meeting. "What made you want to start a guild in the first place?"

"I realized I couldn't protect the things that were important ta me, playin' by the empire's rules." Whitehorse was serious again too.

"There have to be some things that were easier to protect when you were on the other side, though. Even the lower quarter where I'm from, we still had the barrier to protect us."

"Sure, but were ya happy with just puttin' up with all the things ya didn't like?"

"Well, I..."

"So if the rules the empire sets don't suit ya, you've got two choices. You can do like your friend is, and put everything you've got into changin' the system. Or ya can turn yer back on the empire, and live by the rules ya set fer yerself."

"That's pretty clear cut..." _Such a heavy exchange...I feel like I've easily been forgotten as anything more than a stone in the wall_.

"...Yep. I think yer gonna have ta take responsibility for lettin' my prisoner go."

"You want me to do something besides rotting in this cell?"

"The sap who's been puttin' together this little show's gotta be somewhere in this city. I'd been plannin' on askin' yer armor-wearin' friend ta hunt 'em down for me, but..."

"So what, you want me to find them?"

"Your job is ta pay this debt back ta me. How ya go about it is up ta you." _How progressive, a jail with an honor system that let's you out if you promise to be good. Seriously, no collateral whatsoever?_ "That other young lady ya brought with ya is runnin' all over the place helpin' with the injured folks." _Aw, right, forgot that. Guess she didn't go back to the inn like I told them all to._

The Don sounded sly as he ended with, "Yer not the type ta be the only one sittin' around twiddlin' his thumbs, right?"

"See Yuri?" I slipped in (can't resist), "You're predictable!"

"Huh, yeah, well that sounds like Estelle so I guess she's predictable too..." The swordsman seemed to be laughing at himself.

"And you." I jolted a bit as the Don fixed me with his Look of Authority. "If yer also at fault for that knight not bein' here, then ya should think about payin' back yer debt too."

"Yessir!" _Ah! Scary!_

The Don left, and Yuri swung the door of his cell open. I guess he didn't bother to relock it after Flynn left. Well, that made sense, it would be kinda pointless...

"Come on, let's go catch up with the others before things start getting hairy."

"Yeah, I told them we'd meet them at the inn, but from the sounds of it they might not have gone there yet." I followed Yuri back up out of the prison. "Hey Yuri?"

"Yeah?"

"What Whitehorse said before, about having two choices if you don't like the rules. I think there's more than that."

"Really? Then what else?"

"First is apathy, not liking the rules but not doing anything about them. But even doing nothing is making a choice. And lastly there's tabula rasa, the blank slate. Wiping everything clean and starting over fresh."

"I'm not sure I get that last part." We were back in the Union Headquarters proper, and had to stop while our eyes readjusted to the light.

"It's the most extreme option, and I don't think anyone sane would try it. But I think for you there's only the two options the Don gave you, and you've already given up on the first one."

"You're trying to say I should join a guild."

"Nah, what I'm trying to say is you're not the type who'll be satisfied with someone's else's rules. So you should think about what you can do to be true to your own." Able to see again I started towards the door. "Last one to find the others has to take the next shift cooking!"

x x x

Ha ha...the night I posted the last chapter, I also talked on the phone with my mom. Nice conversation, we were joking about a lot of things...and then the dorm's fire alarm went off. And I went "Aw shit" right into the receiver. With my mom on the other end.

Whoops.

Letha: Sylph gets creative when she swears. I think her exact words were "Aw shit! Flippin' shit! Flippin' shit on a grill!" Which her roommate misheard as "Aw chicken! Flippin' chicken! Flippin' chicken on a grill!" It's even more ridiculous than the thing with the cobblers and mugs.

'Kay, so I know I didn't use the term Tabula Rasa quite correctly (meant for some philosophical thing about the brain of a newborn) but I thought it seemed appropriate.

Also, I couldn't find the name of that one skit...if someone knows, could you tell me? I can fix it when I finally go back to edit these things again...


	23. Chapter 23: Helpless

Very Letha-centric chapter.

Warning...a lot of this chapter is just in Letha's head. Some may find this boring. Others may enjoy the insight...

The poll hasn't changed much, same placings as last chapter. And hey! Check out my deviantart page (link in profile). There's another Letha picture up, one for the sake of front, back, and side views. I did it because The Fool Arcana made FAN ART. Just remove the spaces, or follow the links from my favorites...

http :/ sylph writer .deviant art .com/ #/d34treb

http :/ sylph writer .deviant art .com/ #/d34tsp4

http :/ sylph writer .deviant art .com/ #/d34tukx

x x x

Chapter 23: Helpless

x x x

Yuri and I hurried down streets full of semi-controlled chaos. I just barely managed to avoid getting bowled over by a man with a spear running by. I considered shaking my fist comically at the man's back, but it wasn't the time to be goofing around.

"Is he really planning on going to war just to lure those rats out of hiding?" We had reached the central square, and Yuri eyed the rapidly growing mob. Whitehorse stood in the eye of the storm, a rather reluctant looking Raven at his side.

"This has gone beyond being just a bluff." I winced at the blood thirsty shouts of men working themselves up for a fight. "He can't just tell them 'Sorry guys, I wasn't serious' and expect them to go home quietly. He's really taking an all or nothing gamble." _Ho man, _ _if Flynn doesn't get back here in time, it's gonna be HELL. _ I felt my blood go a little cold as I realized something. _ And I can't assume it'll work out because of the game. Flynn could be too late, or the guilds or knights might not accept that it was a mistake._ "Let's find the others fast."

"Yuri! Letha!" Karol called out and came running up from behind us with Estelle. _They found us, so does that mean Yuri and I both have to cook? Damn, he's better at it than me._ Serious time, shut up Letha.

While Yuri was talking with Estelle I looked around for Rita. Wouldn't she be sticking close to Estelle? And...right, the ninja pooch Repede was missing too.

"But Yuri, things have gotten really bad!" Karol was bouncing up and down, just short of waving his hands in the air and screaming about the coming apocalypse.

"Yeah, I noticed," was the dry answer, as yet another group of weapon carrying enthusiasts ran by.

"No, that's not what I mean!" _Uh, hey, if he's so worked up about it, could it be...?_

Same idea seemed to be occurring to Yuri. "What else?" he asked, voice steady in an attempt to get Karol to calm down and talk straight. Didn't work too well.

"I saw them!" _The Blood Alliance, say the Blood Alliance already!_ I chewed on my bottom lip to keep from blurting out in impatience. Did we really have the time for this?

"You saw...who?"

"The Blood Alliance!" _Thank you Estelle!_ "Barbos wasn't with them, but..."

A bit calmer, Karol finally managed to give us some clear facts of his own. "Rita and Repede are shadowing them right now." _Ohh, right. I never thought it was a big deal, not knowing every twist exactly, but it would sure be helpful now that I'm living it all._ That's what happens when you don't have the time or money to buy new game systems and games.

Yuri grumbled a bit angrily to himself, no doubt getting irritated at being used so easily. But he followed as Karol lead the way to wherever Rita was, and would have taken the lead himself if he'd known where to go.

I had fallen to the back of our conga line (yes, nothing like a conga line, shut up) and was trying to remember the route we were taking by looking at the streets we passed. I get lost in new places easy and have a lousy sense of direction, don't judge me. Anyway, that's how I happened to see a flash of something familiar in an alley that made me stop short. _Wings? I could swear I saw fairy wings!_

Peripheral vision for the win! A blade came swinging at me from a blind spot, and I just barely managed to see and dodge it before my neck was sliced open. Instead I had a two inch slash in my right shoulder. Having moved so suddenly I lost balance and fell on the ground with a grunt. Standing above me was a lone Red-eyes. He was about to stab me with both wavy bladed knives while I was down and helpless. I kicked him hard in the knee and scrambled back to my feet.

"Letha!" Yuri and the others had noticed and were about to come running back to my rescue.

"I got this!" I called to stop them, "Just one of George's pals on a vengeance run! You go ahead before we lose our only lead!" They hesitated, but apparently the look I shot Yuri over the Red-eye's shoulder was enough. He nodded and dragged the other two after him.

Satisfied I wouldn't be screwing up the story by holding them back, I concentrated on beating the Red-eyes in front of me._ Wait, I just volunteered to kill this guy, didn't I? Biiitchin' Fuuuck._ I swallowed hard and drew my daggers. Why the daggers? Because I'd somehow been nearly backed into the alley and wouldn't be able to move as freely with my dao.

The Red-eye slashed at me, too fast for me to keep up with. I blocked a few wild swings, but for the most part found myself backing up further into the alley. _Shit, he's doing this on purpose, why? A narrow space is only an advantage for one person trying to take on a group!_

Desperate to win and get out before I learned the reason why, I hummed and made my daggers vibrate with aer. _Humming Blades!_ He blocked my attack and then gave a shocked cry when my daggers cut through his blades. With nothing else to do, he threw the hilts at me. Ducking them, I raised my daggers for the kill shot, but then hesitated.

_He's unarmed...I can't kill someone who's defenseless, even if they were just trying to kill me!_

Caught up in my indecision I didn't pay attention to the scuffing footsteps behind me. I saw the defenseless Red-eye smile victoriously just before something heavy hit the back of my neck. My head hit something hard as I crashed to the ground and fell senseless.

x x x

I woke up because I was moving. Now for me that's nothing unusual. I sleep a lot during road trips so I find the sensation of being in a moving vehicle soothing. But I wasn't in a vehicle, someone was carrying me with his shoulder constantly digging into my stomach. That and the blood rushing to my head made me feel awful queasy. And didn't help the mega headache.

Kicking my legs (futilely) at the air, I gasped, "Put me down before I hurl down your back!" Yeah, normally I'd be all about keeping my mouth shut and hoping to overhear something useful while they thought I was out. Screw it, the dots swimming in my eyes were blinding me. Maybe if the guy dropped me I'd have a chance to bolt and run away. My hands were bound, but I could probably deal with that, right?

Apparently they thought so too, because while the guy did put me down (roughly, but at least he didn't just dump in a mud puddle or something) another kept a knife to my back so I had to keep walking in front of him. Looking around, I was in the center of a small group of Red-eyes who were leading me through a forest. _Uh oh, George's frat buddies caught me. Shit, why? It isn't really for revenge, right? No, then I'd be dead already..._

My eyes fell on one Red-eyes walking ahead and off to the side. He had a familiar satchel bag over his shoulder. "Hey, give me back my bag!" I blurted before thinking about how inadvisable it would be to antagonize the people leading me around with sharp pointy objects. Someone behind me boxed my ear, which made me groan at the ringing in my ears combined with a sharp spike in my headache.

_Right, shut up, pretend to be a model prisoner and wait for the opportune moment. In the mean time, maybe figure out why you've been abducted?_ Well, the Red-eyes were Yeager's lackeys. Yeager hadn't put in an appearance yet (enemy and ethnically confused he may be, but it would still be awesome to meet him), but he was supposed to be working in the background right now. Currently for Ragou and or Barbos, right? Couldn't remember who specifically had hired the Leviathan's Claw guild at this point. Then they'd work for Cumore later...right? God, Yeager had his fingers in so many pies I had trouble remembering.

_But I do know for sure that ultimately he's working for Alexei. SHIT, does that mean Alexei already decided I know too much? But if I was a nuisance, he'd probably have me killed, so maybe he's just paranoid and wants to find out what I know? But having Raven spy on me should have already been the ideal plan for him!_

Without realizing it I had slowed down and got a sharp jab in the back to make me speed up again. _Bastards, I'm groggy and my balance is out of whack from when _you_ hit me! Cut me some slack!_ If only I hadn't hesitated to kill that Red-eyes, I probably would have made it out of that alley and back to the others.

…

_Oh God, what a horrible thought. It may be true, but God..._

I shied away from thinking about that further. Moping and being an angsty drama queen wouldn't help. If being cold hearted got me out of my latest mess alive, then so be it. I wanted to die even less than I wanted to kill, and that's what it all came down to.

So I trudged along and observed quietly. _Four that I can see, and the one directly behind me. They're all dressed the same, they have hardly any distinguishing features from each other. The one that was carrying me seems to be the biggest of the group. That guy up there with my bag is surprisingly thin, oh, and that one doesn't have weapons so he's the one I fought. Other than that I can't tell them apart, and I don't know how many are behind me._

What with me being so quiet and obedient, they were starting to relax themselves. Two appeared to be grumbling to each other about a third slacking off. One complained about a rock in his shoe, then got Gibbs smacked to the back of the head (I miss watching NCIS...). The Red-eyes who'd smacked him was the only one not showing a trace of any cracks in his discipline. Either he was the one in charge or just always had a stick up his ass. A glare from him was all it took to shut the other two up.

Totally like Gibbs.

_We're bound to stop soon, right? It was already getting dark when Yuri and I left the Union... Aw man, what about the others?_ Right, odds were they'd already had their fight with Barbos, and the fake pirate man had used his chainsaw to fly away. (Seriously, what the hell?) Judith would have shown up on Ba'ul (cue Rita's FURY), and then Yuri would hitch a ride with her to follow Barbos. So they were probably on their way to that tower, Ghasfarost, and the others would be following on foot.

_How the hell do they manage that anyway? Just how can they tell which way Barbos went once they're left behind? Raven? He _is_ supposed to be with the group again when they meet up with Yuri in the tower._ Whatever, I shouldn't distract myself from the current situation with details I couldn't do anything about.

Knife or no knife at my back, I couldn't keep going. I kept stumbling on uneven spots in the path and roots hidden in the dark. _So tired, why won't this day just end already!_ It actually came as a shock when I stepped into a circle of light. Looking up instead of staring at my feet, I saw there was this rundown shack right ahead of us. The knife holder prodded me towards it, and I eagerly went inside.

A pretty rude place, not much besides a large, round table, some warped looking wooden chairs, and boxes left here and there. There were some oil lamps placed around the single room on top of some of the crates, and a single Red-eyes who looked like he'd just woken up from a nap. I'd guess it was a secret storehouse, one for smuggled goods or weapons?

_It's not like they'd just bring me out here to kill me, right? Right? Whatever they kidnapped me for, it'll wait 'til tomorrow, right?_ Gibbs shoved me so that I was kneeling on the floor. The ropes my hands were tied with were loosened, then my hands were pulled behind my back and tied again. _Shit, that'll make things harder for me_. Then I was shoved into a corner and ignored.

To my relief they finally started talking. It was creepy how quiet they'd been. Assassins are human too, and should have a human urge to fill the silence. There were seven of them, though Gibbs was being antisocial and had his mouth clamped shut, and the lot of them pulled up chairs around the only table. A few had to use some convenient crates instead. From somewhere they'd produced a deck of cards and started playing poker.

_What are they going to bet with? It doesn't look like they have anything with them..._ The first round ended, and the winner reached down...and pulled my bag up onto the table. _Oh no, nononono-_

"First pick!" he crowed and dumped my stuff out on the table.

"_HELL_ no!" I stumbled up onto my feet, intent on running over and kicking them all into submission if I had to. "NO! You keep your paws off my stuff or I'll castrate you with a rusty letter opener!" They just laughed (why do people keep laughing at me when I'm angry about something?) and the nearest one stood up and punched me in the face before I could do anything. I crashed to the ground and groaned. "Bastards..."

"Gag her," ordered Gibbs.

A rag was shoved into my mouth and secured by another piece of rope tied around my head. Meanwhile someone else also took the chance to tie my legs together at the ankles and knees. _Shiiit. Odds of escaping, rapidly going down._ I could only fume and make the occasional muffled curse as I watched them pick through my things each time someone won. The one whose weapons I'd broken took my daggers, the big guy took my dao, and my gels all found their ways into various pockets. My Earth clothes were pretty much ignored.

Gibbs had frowned at the pile, and picked the bag as his first prize. _FUCK! My stuff from Earth is in that!_ I'd been praying they wouldn't notice the slight extra weight and would just throw the bag away. Next time Gibbs won, he took the case with Sophia's notes. _Ugh, not good..._ And the next time he took my journal, after one Red-eye had flipped through it and complained that it was "full of scribbles and chicken scratch." (Shut up, my hand writing's pretty good! Except when I'm taking notes in a hurry...) But I was worried. He'd picked out all the stuff I was most afraid of losing and having studied by others. Was he doing that on purpose? But how could that be?

Eventually one pulled out some food (looked like dry rations) from a nearby crate. I could feel my mouth watering as they ate, which was nasty because the gag interfered with my reflex to swallow. Seeing me watching, one of the less distinguishable Red-eyes stood up and sauntered over.

"You hungry, wretch?" he sneered. I glared at him, but to my humiliation my stomach chose that moment to growl. Face turning red, I jerked a nod. But he just smirked. "What's that? I couldn't hear you." I nodded again, feeling the burn in my face intensify as the men at the table snickered. They'd stopped playing cards to watch the show, and Gibbs didn't show any signs of caring.

The one taunting me turned back to look at them. "She's not saying 'yes' so I guess she doesn't want any. Little bird must be on a diet." The man I'd newly named Birdman laughed as he returned to his seat and the game. _One day, I'm gonna tie you to an anthill, one with red ants, and dump a jar of honey on you. I've heard of something similar being an old method of torture..._

I allowed myself to fall on my side with a soft thump, and curled up as tightly as I could. My arms had started to ache terribly from the unaccustomed position, and my jaw hurt from the gag. With my eyes closed, I tried to _think_ and forget how miserable I was.

_Before the attack...I saw what looked like a fairy's wings in the alley. A connection? But it doesn't make sense for Nevi to have me jumped and kidnapped. He did that already, and now essentially has me at beck and call. So could it be Alastor? But...I can't be sure, but the wings didn't look like his. Or Nevi's for that matter..._ I tried to remember that flash of memory, but it was so brief I could almost believe I'd imagined it. Maybe...they'd been green?

Maybe I was fooling myself, hoping it was someone else. Alastor usually was a dick, but I'd thought he wouldn't actually try to get me hurt. If it really was him behind this attack then that would mean I'd read him wrong. I lifted my head slightly, and let it fall on the floor again with another soft thump. Tears of frustration and helplessness burned my eyes.

x x x

I slept fitfully for the rest of the night. Whenever I did wake up, I would look around to see what the Red-eyes were doing. But even once they all went to sleep (with blankets and bed rolls they didn't share with me) there was always one staying awake to keep guard. Whenever I shifted positions I could practically feel the current guard staring at me for minutes afterwards.

_Dammit...maybe Nevi will come save me._ I thought about that. _No. He didn't save me even when I nearly died in Ragou's basement, not bloody likely he'll help now_.

The longest, most uncomfortable night of my life finally ended. Gibbs was the last one on guard duty, and at dawn he woke up his men with kicks and barked commands. Totally must be the one in command. "You," he pointed at one of the other unimpressive Red-eyes, "feed her."

Without much interest in his chore, the Red-eyes grabbed one of the ration bar things and a canteen. He pulled the rope and gag from my mouth and thankfully let me have a sip of water from the canteen first. My mouth felt so dry and rough, I probably wouldn't have been able to swallow anything. The ration bar was bad enough. It seemed to be made of oats or something, like a granola bar, but was somehow devoid of any flavor.

The moment I finished the gag was shoved right back in my mouth. Joy.

Morning was slow to pass by, but at least I had something marginally more interesting to watch than sleeping assassins. I watched assassins doing chores! Well, kinda. There wasn't much to do, and most of it seemed like busywork. Since they didn't seem to be getting ready to go anywhere I eventually decided they were waiting for someone. Good odds that person was whoever had hired them to kidnap me.

Despite how bored they all must have been, Gibbs ran a tight ship. He didn't forbid talking, but apparently he'd managed to convince them it was a good idea not to let any names or similarly sensitive information slip in front of the prisoner. Nor did they interrogate me, which would have let me infer what was going on based on the questions asked. Cheapskates.

I was booored. I'd already gone through all the plausible explanations I could think of, and that left me with only implausibly absurd ones. Like Yeager had heard of my awesome skills and wanted to recruit me. Yeaah, totally not it. But that was better than the other darker thoughts bubbling up from the corners of my mind where I'd suppressed them.

Thoughts like _Does my family know I'm alive?_ Weeks without any contact (even given I didn't call home much, I hate phones) or even ransom notes. For all they knew my corpse was lying on the bottom of Lake Ontario. How long had I been on Terca Lumireis? _Well, roughly two weeks with Ludwig... Three, no wait, four days with the others before we skipped continents, a night at sea, one in the harbor, Dhangrest and Keiv Moc trips took...three days? So nearly four weeks? This world must be considerably smaller than Earth. How the hell does it have enough gravity pull to keep us from falling off?_

The short of it was it had been nearly a month since I'd left Earth. Unless the fairies were pulling some weird time and space continuum thing that would pop me back to the same time I'd left, my family would be frantic with worry. Another loss in the family, after a string of deaths and hospitalizations. Mom's heart would break.

That was my biggest regret. In truth, I didn't mind having been pulled out my world. I missed home, how couldn't I? But I enjoyed adventuring here. Other than the need to kill things and the whole part about being tied up and left on the floor of a shack of course. At this point I was ticked at Nevi mainly because I was being treated as a tool, and as long as he called the shots my freedom was an illusion. The tattoo probably had some other tricks I hadn't learned about, just in case I wasn't obedient to the cause.

By early afternoon I had lost all energy for even half hearted jokes to myself. What was the point? The fooling around was only a semiconscious act of mine. It's purposes were to one, keep my mind of bad shit. Though I could use that, I just couldn't find anything funny in my situation. Purpose two, appeal myself to others. For years I'd been accustomed to getting even strangers to smile at my light hearted banter. Lady at the bookstore even asked me if my parents called me Sunny because I was so happy... Purpose three, and had only come into effect once I'd been kidnapped by Nevi and dropped in another world, if people were used to me being mildly but harmlessly crazy, they might ignore any slip ups I made. Though that seemed to have had limited success with Ludwig and Yuri.

I was finally distracted from my boredom by some pressing needs. It served to further my humiliation, but I desperately needed to get their attention. My only option was to writhe around like a caterpillar and knock my feet against the floor. The present Red-eyes turned to stare at me, but eventually Gibbs seemed to figure it out.

"You." Pointed to a different Red-eyes. Not sure, but I thought it was a different one from the guy that fed me. Let no single person spend too much time with the prisoner, no risk of attachments. "Take her outside before she fouls herself." _Humiliation!_ My face burned, and "_fouls herself?" How old is this guy?_ Had I ever in my life met someone who would phrase it like that?

The Red-eyes untied my legs (thank GOD, return of circulation!) and dragged me up to my feet. I nearly fell down without his support. No way I could take the chance to run away. I was practically dragged outside and behind the nearest clump of trees. Then a horrible revelation. With my hands tied behind my back, I couldn't, um, take care of my business by myself.

The Red-eyes and I actually stood there for a few minutes staring at each other. My stare was either along the lines of "even think about it and I'll find a way to hurt you," or "for the love of all that's good, _please_ don't do what I think you're about to do." Fortunately, I was spared this last humiliation. Maybe he was young and embarrassed, I dunno, but he actually untied my hands, and retied one of them to a branch. Then turned his back to me, while standing out of my reach.

Aaand, back into the boring shack. I spent three days in that place total, with nothing happening except for Birdman occasionally talking trash to me. Bastard liked pulling on my braid. Too bad for him, it takes a pretty strong yank for that to actually hurt me. Though when that failed to get a reaction from me, he began trying to push my limits. Apparently the others didn't care what he did as long as no bones were broken. He used me like a freakin' doormat, stepping on me and kicking me every time he passed by. Soon I was covered in bruises.

I kept trying to decide how far the story had progressed without me. Yuri would have fought Barbos on the tower, then got caught and locked up with Judith and some other random prisoners. (Maybe they were people forced to help build the tower for Barbos?) Judith being a woman would be revealed and they'd team up. Reunion with the others, who by that time must have figured out something was up with me disappearing. Though it wasn't like they could have dropped everything to come find me.

Barbos fight, Barbos badmouthing Yuri, "I'll see you again in hell," kinda thing, then Barbos falling to his death to keep the hero's hands clean and full of justice. Though not for long in Yuri's case. Blastia malfunction? I thought that happened in the tower, right, and Duke shows up with Dein Nomos to settle it down again. There's also the suspicious moment of brief interaction between Raven and Duke. Though this should all have happened during my first day prisoner.

After that...well, Flynn had hopefully stopped the war. Probably had, I couldn't help but think these Red-eyes would be busier if the war had actually happened. Ragou would be proven guilty, but get off with only a demotion for punishment. Had that happened yesterday? Or been more realistic and happened today after plenty of time for discussion and bribery? Well either way, once Yuri heard about it he'd turn vigilante and kill Ragou in the night.

Ah man. Part of me was glad I'd missed that, and another part wished I could have been there. To kill even someone like Ragou seemed morally wrong to me, but _goddammit, I'd been in his basement a whole night_. Though thinking about how cold Yuri was in that scene, and what that would be like in reality, my resentment and anger quieted to apprehension. Such a heavy scene...how would that change him? Even in the game he didn't brush it off lightly, though in typical Yuri fashion he didn't make a big deal out of it most of the time.

Come to think of it...where did the Ragou killing happen? Heliord? No, that wasn't it...they go to Heliord after that... But...what about after that? The group starts to split up, Raven was off with either the guilds or Alexei, Rita left because of her assignment and research, Estelle almost leaves with the knights to go back to Zaphias, while Yuri and Karol linger. It was Phaeroh's sudden attack that kickstarts the next chain of events, giving Estelle her excuse to put off going home. And Yuri finally decides to start that guild with Karol while simultaneously stealing the princess out from under the knights' noses. And Judith tags along.

Had that happened already? If not, then how much longer? I had to escape before they got too far away... _Wait, would they leave me behind? After the issue with Barbos is-was-resolved, what if they started looking for me? It wouldn't be hard to figure out that the Red-eyes were responsible...what if they actually go looking for me at the Manor of the Wicked? Woah, this could fuck up the storyline..._

That clinched it, I really needed to get out and let them know I was okay before I started a new series of events that didn't end in preventing the destruction of the world. But when would I get a chance?

x x x

Chance! Maybe? For some reason after I was fed the third evening, they didn't bother to gag me again. I kept quiet, just in case it was an oversight and speaking would draw Gibbs' attention to it. My luck held out even longer. Some of the Red-eyes were getting impatient, waiting for whatever we were waiting for.

"What are we doing minding this brat? This is not the work our guild does!" Thin man's voice.

"Orders are orders! And master Yeager's new client is paying an even higher fee than the usual jobs get." Big guy's voice.

"I don't care how much much money that green haired bitch has, this is insulting to our skills!" _Green haired? Who's that? Is there even any _side_ characters in this world with green hair?_

"I think we should just kill her now." Wasn't sure which one that was...

"And what good would killing a pathetic wretch that can't fight do your skills? All you'd be doing is making a mockery of our guild for failing the job." Think that was the one who'd usually fed me.

"Not that he has any skills to speak of. What was that the other day, the little bird could have killed you easy with her knives. Pathetic worm." There was an angry shout and the sound of flesh on flesh. Birdman stumbled over my prone body, falling back and knocking over an unlit lantern. It shattered as it hit the ground, broken glass and oil spilling everywhere.

Birdman leaped up again and threw himself back at whoever had thrown him. Judging by the conversation it was the guy whose weapons I'd broken. I rolled away from them, appearing as if I were trying to avoid being stepped on again, but actually covering up a few pieces of broken glass with my body. Not long after the fight was broken up by Gibbs. I curled up, and started to push myself into an upright position. In doing so I managed to carefully pick up piece of glass with my teeth, and then carefully hid it in my mouth.

Just in time. On Gibbs' orders one of them quickly cleaned up all the pieces of broken glass, and even forced me to move to make sure I wasn't sitting on one. I kept my head bowed so my hair hung forward and it wasn't as obvious that my mouth wasn't gagged.

_Now I wait some more_. I curled up on my side to pretend I was sleeping, the piece of glass cradled carefully inside my cheek.

Only a few hours later they'd all settled in for sleep again. I had intentionally been fidgeting quite a bit. After initially watching me like a hawk, the guard eventually dismissed my antics and grew noticeably bored. And drowsy. A third night after three dull days, he was probably almost as mentally exhausted as I was.

Slowly he began to nod off.

And finally he began to snore.

I flipped onto my side and curled my knees up tightly to my chest. Hunching my body, I kept trying to twist and bend in various ways until I managed to work my bound hands under my legs, and finally up in front of me. _Oh for the love of...my shoulders are killing me..._ Other than the brief trips outside with Mr. Shy, my arms had been locked into that position for far too long.

I couldn't take the time to appreciate the change. I carefully slipped the glass out from my cheek, clamping my teeth on it. I brought my hands up to it's jagged edge and slowly began to saw away at the rope. _This would be easier if I could use aer, but even if I could do that without cutting my hands off, I'm just too mentally exhausted. No MP or whatever it's called in the Tales series._

Even if the guard was only lightly dozing the sounds of my maneuvering would be overlooked. He'd already gotten used to it after all. I'm not sure how long it took, probably not nearly as long as it felt since I was on edge listening for even the slightest sign that my attempts had been notice. The thin piece of glass also dulled a bit, so cutting gradually became more difficult.

But the last few strands of the rope frayed and snapped. I shook it from my wrists and tried to massage some feeling back into them. Moving onto my feet, I picked and clawed at the knots around my ankles and knees until I loosened them and could pull those ropes away. Once I had, I stopped for a moment to absorb one fact.

_I'd done it_. All that was left was to get the flip out.

Carefully, using my natural quietness and experience of sneaking through my house at two am., I tiptoed around the sleeping bodies. I'd seen Gibbs leave me bag...there! I fished it out of a crate, and was happy to find that yes, he had left my stuff that he'd won inside of it. A quick inventory by touch revealed that everything was still there. Next I grabbed some ration bars and a full canteen and dropped them in my bag.

Lastly was weapons. Dammit, I wanted my own weapons back, but it was too risky to try and figure out which dark body was which. Even if I could tell who had them, taking them back would probably wake someone up. The longer I stayed the more danger I was in already. I settled for snatching a regular sword out of one of the crates, one directly on top so the sounds of metal on metal wouldn't give me away.

Carefully tip toed towards the door. Quietly opened and shut the door with mercifully well oiled hinges. And then I booked it.

x x x

Very Letha-centric.

Gawd, such a trouble magnet. At least she solved the trouble herself this time, eh? Largely because of luck...

...Next chapter will be more fun. If it somehow gets filled with lots of filler, than the chapter after that should be awesomeness.


	24. Chapter 24: Dare to Dance With Me?

This chapter tried to turn gory at one point. I reminded myself to keep it toned down a bit... Then there comes a bit I think some of you will enjoy.

Poll numbers stand...

Hey, guess what? It's getting close to Christmas. Why should you care? Because I'm gonna let you guys request a fic. Something along the lines of "It's not part of the main Fairy Tales story line, but it's related." If you want an example, the first request placed is for Yuri and Letha to get into a bar fight. Hmm, if I actually get swamped by too many requests, I might not be able to write them all. I'd try to get to them, but you know... Go ahead, ask no matter how crazy it is, if you want to see it. There will be limits, (NO PRN! *Letha flushes and leaves the room quickly*) but I trust you guys.

x x x

Chapter 24: Dare to Dance With Me?

x x x

The nagging fear that Gibbs was right behind me and would catch me if I stopped kept me going for awhile. Using a technique for maintaining a relatively straight line (I read it in a book, involves paying close attention to two points ahead of you) I tried going in the direction we'd approached the shack from. It was possible the assassin-kidnappers had come to the shack from an indirect route, but worrying about that wouldn't do me any good.

Eventually I decided that I'd put enough distance behind me, and even if they were following I wouldn't be able to fight them off if I was dropping of exhaustion. But I groaned when I realized that sleeping on the ground would leave me too exposed to pursuers and monsters both.

_So here I am, trying to sleep while balancing on a tree branch, praying I don't fall off and break my neck_. Well, I'm used to trying not to move in my sleep when I'm on camping trips. And based on my reactions to nearly dozing off in class, hopefully my body would notice and I'd wake up first?

_You Red-eyes suck! I'm gonna get revenge for this!_

x x x

"_She sounds like a guy." Haha, I remember this... My oldest brother was passing through the room while I was playing Grandia._

"_It is a guy."_

"_...He looks like a girl."_

"_Anime's like that sometimes."_

"_..." Ha, this was before either of my brothers became mildly interested in anime... It was to be a recurring conversation._

~ x ~

"_Mom?" Lying on my stomach, on the couch._

"_Don't mind me, just keep watching your show!"_

"_...I'm getting new clothes for Christmas, aren't I?"_

"_What makes you think that?"_

"_You just checked the tag on my pants, while I was wearing them."_

"_You'll just have to wait and see." I was actually looking forward to it, Mom had a good eye._

~ x ~

"_Hey, can I ask something?"_

"_What?"_

"_Well, since you're gonna be gone for a while, I wanted to make a painting for you to take... You know, just as a piece of home or something... Is there anything you'd like?" Oh, my second older brother, about to transfer to study in Japan for a year..._

"_Huh. Well, if you made it, then as long as it's aesthetically appealing I'll like it."_

"_Really?"_

"_Yeah, sure."_

"_I considered painting a bottle of Pepsi Blue." Inside joke with my big bros._

"_Heh!"_

~ x ~

"_Ugh, the kitchen floor must be terrible without me at home to wash it..."_

"_Actually, we hired a maid to do it."_

"_What?"_

"_Yes, a Spanish maid named Maria."_

"_What?" How does dad say this stuff with a straight poker face?_

"_I bought a mop."_

"_WHAT? REALLY?" The world was coming to an end! First a snowblower, then a mop?_

~ x ~

"_Why won't it work..."_

"_What's wrong?" My best friend, she spends a lot of time at my house during breaks. My whole family loves her, she's great entertainment._

"_I'm working on a commission for mom, she wanted me to paint a still life for her. But I can't get the blue mug right..."_

"_Want me to try mixing the color for you?"_

"_YES PLEASE!"_

"_...dang, still not right. Hey, why don't I just let you borrow some of my paints?"_

"_Really? That would help so much!"_

"_If I asked, would you do a commission for me too?"_

"_Alright, just let me know when you think of something you'd like me to paint." That brat, the still life she came up with was full of things she knew I had trouble with. But it turned out to be one of my best pieces._

Eh? My eyes were wet... I had been drifting in and out of sleep all night long. Since I'd spent so much time reflecting while prisoner, it seemed a lot of memories had come up to the surface of my subconscious.

_I always knew I was lucky, my family life was never full of the drama that made my classmates swear they couldn't wait to get out and live on their own._ It was ironic that the false life I'd built here made me into an orphan with a mysterious past. Almost like I was an entirely different person!

_Another flash of memory. During a trip my family stopped at a restaurant for lunch. When we came out there was a parade passing by, and candy was being thrown every where. By the time it had passed by, my brothers and I each had filled our plastic travel cups to the brims with brightly colored sweets._

"Ah, I forgot about that..." I smiled slightly. Funny that even while my memory seemed to be falling apart, I was suddenly pulling up these small but nice memories out of nowhere.

_CRACK_

_Oh shizz..._ I froze, clutching my stolen sword tighter in one hand, and slowly leaned a bit so I could look down at the ground. _Monster, man, or animated plant?_

Ugh, it was a Red-eyes. _I'll just stay here... "Don't move, maybe he doesn't see us..."_ I kept my breathing shallow and kept as still as possible. _What's that cheesy anime line? Erase your presence? Fuck do you do that?_ I'm naturally unnoticeable even when I'm not trying, how the heck have I managed that?

Meanwhile, the assassin was stealthily sneaking around the base of the tree. Except for, you know, stepping on the branch that snapped and alerted me earlier. Smooth, man. _So what do I do? Get the jump on him before he realizes I'm here? It would probably be better to let him keep going and hope he passes by...but if he realizes I'm here then I'll lose the advantage I have now._

_Ah!_ Another realization._ I knock him out or kill him, he doesn't report, and then the others figure out that this is the right direction. Snaaap._

And then proof that the universe (or is it the multiverse, since I was proof of dimensional travel?) had a really fucked up sense of humor.

My stomach growled. Loudly.

And the Red-eyes looked up and spotted me.

_Gyaah! It's the Cosmic Conspiracy that plagued me all through high school!_ There were only two clubs I was interested in, Art and Fencing. And every year they were scheduled for the same days, even if they changed their meeting times from the previous year! I tried to split my time between them, until I was semi-forced into the role of Art Club president with only one reliable helper...

A train of thought which totally wasn't helping me deal with the Red-eyes who was shouting for his comrades to join him. _Damn you, Thin Man!_ The rest of them arrived in a matter of moments.

So I was a treed fox with hounds circling the base. Goddammit, and the soundtrack of my life (the back of my mind) was playing "Fifteen Birds," a song from a scene in _The Hobbit_ where Bilbo and the Dwarves are treed and have goblins and wolves snapping at their heels.

"Shit, you guys, girls don't like men who are too persistent!" I griped at them.

One of them actually went, "Really? Is that why Claire's avoiding me?" Then there was a smacking noise, probably Gibbs hitting him.

"Yeah, man, totally. Chasing too hard is a turn off," I told them as a group. Couldn't tell which one was the one with girlfriend problems, I couldn't see them all clearly. "A girl needs some space, but if you back off too much she'll think you lost interest."

"What! How am I supposed to know?" Another smack. _Lay off, Gibbs, this man needs help!_

"Can't say. Every relationship is unique. You just have to try and read the mood so you know when not to push it."

"Enough!" Gibbs barked. Then he glared up at me. "Get down and surrender at once, and we won't punish you as severely."

"'As severely'? Shit no, I don't wanna be punished at all!" Fuel to the flames. "Let me go already!"

"Orders are orders! Get her down here, now!"

And two of the Red-eyes started climbing the tree. "Shit!" I kicked at the face of the first one to get close to me, but that left me open for the other one to grab my leg. "Leggo! Pervert!" I tried shaking him off, but the devil wouldn't let go._ Aikido! Why have you no solution for this? I can't do anything without being solidly on the ground!_

There was a whirring noise, and slightly sickening thump that made us all pause. On the ground, one of the Red-eyes stared at a crimson fletched arrow in his chest before falling over dead. I recovered first, kicking my leg free and the Red-eyes out of the tree before jumping out myself. Birdman ended up being the human cushion that broke my fall (that was on purpose!), and while he groaned on the ground I leaped up and charged the remaining assassins with my sword.

I charged the one I'd fought before, who had replaces his broken weapons with my daggers. If I was going to fight with an unfamiliar weapon, I'd take on the person with a similar handicap! Though shit, another arrow flew past my ear and apparently hit someone behind me!

My sword was heavier than I was used to, and felt clumsy in my two handed grip. _Crap, I'm used to fencing foils and my dao._ In comparison this weapon was a crude Neanderthal's tool. Still, I had the advantage of reach over the other guy.

He tried to block a swing of my sword, but the daggers were knocked aside. I let the momentum of my swing continue, drawing a loop in the air with the blade's tip, and brought it back across to slash his chest. Blood sprayed from the cut, and he stumbled back with his hands pressing against his wound. "Ergh!"

I felt sick to my stomach, but grimly swooped down to snatch up my daggers again.

"Climhazzard!" I heard a male voice yell, followed by a scream from the Big guy. _WHAT? Is Cloud Strife my rescuer?_ Not really thinking straight, I spun to see what was happening. It wasn't the hero of Final Fantasy VII, but Chase swinging his claymore around like it weighed nothing.

"Ch-Chase!" _Really? What are the chances that someone I know would save me just in time?_ By now Birdman had recovered from our abrupt reunion, and was approaching me with a snarl.

"I'll clip your wings, little bird!"

Something might have snapped in my head. I would almost bet that there was an audible "twang." "WHAT IS WITH YOUR FIXATION WITH FOWL, YOU SADISTIC PIECE OF BAT GUANO?" I screamed as I rushed him. "Double Star Stoke!" I swung aer through both daggers, producing two smaller versions of Estelle's Star Stroke attack that hit him from different angles.

"Shit! You'll pay for that!"

"Letha, look out!" Damn that human reaction that makes you turn and look stupidly when someone says "look out." Gibbs had rushed me from a blind spot and slashed across my back. I screamed in pain. Chase swore and grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me out of reach of the Red-eyes commander and placing himself in front of me protectively.

_Dammit, I am _not _a damsel that needs rescuing!_ Blinking pained tears out of my eyes, I saw the body of the Big guy lying not too far away, my dao still in his hand. Sheathing my right hand dagger, I lurched forward and scooped it up. _Crazy time!_

I swung around and held out my blades out dramatically, inviting attention. "Hey ya bastards! Come dance with the devil!" Whatever had snapped earlier must have been my good sense. Then I rushed them again, "_Say goodbye~! As we dance with the devil tonight~! Don't you dare look at him in the eye~! As we dance with the devil tonight~!"_ Having a crazed girl half singing, half chanting lyrics from another world as she makes a suicidal rush at you would make most anyone pause for a moment, to go "WTF" if nothing else.

Spinning around and slashing wildly, my attacks were sloppy but hard to predict. Gibbs managed to block the ones that came his way, but even he took a step back. I laughed and sang another verse, "_I believe in you~ I can show you that, I can see right through~ All your empty lies~ I won't last long~ In this world so wrong~!_" Birdman got too close and took a long slash across his right cheek and the bridge of his nose.

Eventually I had to stop, too dizzy to keep spinning and jumping around without falling over. Panting, I realized the fight had taken too much of a toll on my body because of my already weakened state. It was all I could do to stay standing. _Shit, I think I even twisted my ankle slightly._ The Red-eyes could tell I was at the end of my rope, and the ones that weren't wounded too badly (like No Weapons and Mr. Shy with an arrow in his leg) or permanently down for the count (Thin Man with an arrow through the heart and Big guy) started closing in again.

The one who had no other name than The One Who Usually Fed Me stopped and threw a few gels at Mr. Shy, who was apparently giving himself some quick old fashioned first aid (not the arte) to deal with his leg wound. Soon he'd be back in the fight again. _Dammit, why won't this end?_

Chase clapped a hand on my shoulder, leaning in close and whispering, "Shut your eyes." I obeyed, having just enough time to see him throw something at the Red-eyes' feet. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell that everything lit up with a bright flash, the back of my eyelids flaring red. At the same time, Chase swept me up off my feet (GYAH! BRIDAL STYLE, NOOO!) and ran off with me.

Man was like a freakin' deer, leaping over anything in our way without even stumbling on anything. Track teams would kill for someone like him. Finally he slowed and stopped, setting me down on the ground again. My left foot gave out under me, so I sat down heavily.

"Dammit, warn me before you do that," I gasped. "Carrying me like that, it's practically like we eloped or something." Bad choice of words, I was blushing.

He laughed, a bit out of breath. _Good, he's human after all_. "Sorry, but I didn't think it would go well for us if we took any longer. I was already pretty beat from just looking for you. And you're heavier than you look!" _Too tired to throw something at him. I'm not fat, I just look thinner because of my choice of clothes! Don't you go asking if I'm bulimic like those girls did!_ No joke.

I blinked as the rest of what he said sank in. "Looking for me? You were?"

Chase nodded, and blew some of his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, your friends have been asking around about you since a few days ago. Even got people from both the guilds and the knights helping with the search." He winked. "You've got quite some impressive connections, don'tcha?"

I ducked my head to hide my expression. I was sure that had made me blush again. Hearing that the others were trying so hard to find me made me feel cared for, touched, and relieved. And scared, 'cause who know what they'd do once they found me. Or what they had done while looking for me. "I've gotta get back then. Let them know I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere."

Looking back up at him, I asked, "Um, where are we anyway? I kinda lost track at some point."

"We're in the woods west of Dahngrest. Pretty much nothing out this way either." The brunet swordsman looked like he was doing calculations in his head. "We shouldn't be too far away, a few hours walk maybe. But we should get going before those guys catch up again. A bit further and we'll be within range of patrols. Then they won't dare to attack with the injuries they have now."

He removed the giant sheathed claymore from his back and propped it against a tree. While I wondered what he was up to when he'd just said we couldn't stick around, he walked up to me, turned around, and knelt on the ground in front of me. "Hop on."

"Whuh?" I took a moment to process this. "A piggy back ride?"

"You hurt your foot earlier, right? So it'll be better for you, and probably faster, to go like this." Logic, how dare you betray me. Reluctantly, I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him lift me onto his back. _Woah, I think he might be a bit taller than Yuri..._

"Your hands better not wander, mister."

"Yes, milady Black Widow."

"I could choke you to death right now you know."

"But then milady wouldn't have her carriage ride home." I squeezed my arms. "I give! I give!" He carried me over to where he'd left his claymore, which I somehow managed to arrange on my own back. Its weight made my wounded back ache and sting terribly. "Jeez. I feel like a damn pack horse, with all these weapons and bags hanging off me." Yeah, I still had my own bag, even after that fight.

"Which category do I fall under?"

"...Human weapon. Of mass destruction."

"Ha ha... I think that's exaggerating it a bit..."

"Not really. Dahngrest nearly got torn apart by people looking for you."

_Shiiit._ "It wasn't my fault!"

"'S cool. People are more pissed off at the Blood Alliance and some council guy from the empire than you." _Oh, chance for information!_

"So what happened? I've been out of the loop for three days."

"Mm, I don't know all the details. Before I joined the effort to look for you I was pretty busy helping with repairs from the war."

"_WHAT?"_ _Didn't Flynn make it in time?_

"Well, even once that knight showed up, yelling something about a letter, there were some people who just wouldn't let it all go. Hot heads that didn't want to lose their excuse for a fight with the group they hate most. So rather than a war, it was more like multiple brawls breaking out all over the place. I've also heard rumors that a large man was seen flying in the sky with a strange blastia-" _...Barbos and his chainsaw?_ "-and followed by two people riding a monster." _Yuri and Judith_.

"Wow. So what happened with the fights?" _So things didn't go as smoothly as the game would have it._

"Well the Don managed to knock some sense into their heads before they caused too much damage to public property," _Why was there fighting in the streets? Shouldn't this have happened out on an open field or something?_ "And that blond knight did a pretty good job getting the empire's trouble makers back under control. Leader material, that one."

He sighed, and hiked me up a bit higher on his back. I gave a startled squeak, and then thumped the side of his head lightly when he laughed. "Anyway, it seems the ruckus was all caused by Barbos and some old geezer from the empire. Seems they wanted to use the trouble to snatch more power for themselves. Barbos got himself killed and the geezer was put to trial. Bastard only got demoted though." I could almost hear his scowl. Amazing. "Funny thing, though. The next day the old bastard was missing. Good riddance." _Yay, Yuri~! I'll worry and bemoan the ethics later_.

"I heard your friends asking around town about you the day after the fights. And search parties began looking out past the barriers yesterday."

"Oh man, I can't believe it became such a big deal." We fell silent after that. I began to think back over the events of the day. Those arrows...they each had red fletching...but they seemed too long for Chase's crossbow? But who else could have shot them? "Hey, this might seem out of nowhere, but have you been to Caer Bocram at all recently?"

"Hmm? Can't say that I have. Why?"

"No reason..." Come to think of it, I couldn't even tell where he keeps his arrows. And the ones he'd used back in Dahngrest were definitely different. "What about that move, you called it Climhazzard?" I hadn't actually seen him use it, just Big guy's hacked up body. Still.

"You wanna learn it?"

"No, that's not what I meant..." I decided to drop it. What could I ask, "Did you name it after a move from an Earth video game?" Yeah, great idea.

"Hey, you'll be glad to know that your ban from the Arcturus inn was repealed."

"Really? Why'd they do that?"

"Some sketchy lookin' guy in a purple coat showed up. He told them the Don said to 'pull their heads out of their asses.' Lucky for me, that was just after they'd found out that I'd been involved and were about to throw me out."

"Lady Luck smiles upon us..." As if mocking my words, the tattoo on my left hand began to grow warm under the glove. I went rigid on Chase's back.

"Something wrong? Is your injury hurting?" _Yes, but I'd been managing to ignore it..._

"Nothing, just thought I heard something..." I forced myself to relax. _Now really isn't the time. Even if an heirloom piece is nearby, Chase and I are too banged up to take any detours. And even if I asked him to go that way, what I would I say if he asked why? I'll have to just leave it for now..._

Another long stretch of silence. Eventually the warmth faded from my hand again. How long had we been walking? It was weird to have someone carry me. Actually, I couldn't remember ever having a piggy back ride in my life. The closest thing was when I jumped up to hug my dad's neck from behind, and then he'd always try to lean forward to lift me off the ground. Though my feet never left ground and I would probably let him go if I thought they were about to. Dad's knees had always been bad.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I also have a message from your Uncle." I blinked, and suddenly realized he meant Ludwig. I'd really been concentrating on my real family lately... "Umm, it's in the upper right pocket of my coat."

"...Are you telling me to feel around in your coat to find it?"

"...Why do I feel like I shouldn't answer this?"

I snorted, and carefully pointed at a pocket on his right chest. "This one?"

"Yeah, that's the one." I slipped my hand in and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "What the...it looks like someone used this as a coaster for a drink!"

"Um, sorry, I thought it was something else at the time."

"Jeez, how long have you been carrying this?"

"I was going to give it to you last time, but then you and that guy side tracked me!"

"Excuses." I unfolded the paper and held it up so I could read it over his shoulder.

_**Dear Letha,**_

_**You are not to marry the young man that delivers this letter.**_

I laughed so hard I think the wound on my back started bleeding again. Chase was apparently reading too, because he was grumbling something about the child being blamed for the sins of the parent.

_**As you said in your letter, I really have no way of knowing where to send this so that it may reach you. However, it seems young Chase has work that requires him to travel and so I write in the hopes that he may have the chance to pass this on.**_

_**The house has felt too quiet since you've left. I find myself planning lessons on fighting more efficiently, only to realize my student is gone. I'd been considering the wisdom of leaving for my own journey, and your letter was the deciding factor. Rotting alone and useless is unlike me, Sophia would surely scold me for it.**_

_**Perhaps our paths will cross during our travels. I would like to hear about the friends you've made, and if possible meet the people who are looking after my dear niece.**_

_**Wishing for your continued health,**_

_**Ludwig**_

"Guy always sounds real formal, doesn't he?" Chase commented.

"Yeah, but he lightens up a bit when you act childish around him." Though the letter had sounded a bit too stiff for something you'd send to someone you'd supposedly raised. I sighed and slumped against Chase's back, the letter crumpling in my hand. He made a slight noise in his throat, which he tried to cover up as a cough.

_...Too bad for you, I'm not stacked like Judith is_. My eyes were sliding closed. _Ugh, that's it, I can't hold on any longer_. The letter slipped and fell from my limp hand.

"Oi, Letha?" Chase's voice seemed distant as I drifted off, feeling safe for the first time in days. "Oh come on..."

x x x

"Wakey, wakey!"

"That's not enough to wake her up, old man."

"But she woke up when I tried to carry her!"

"She's had it rough, I doubt she'll be coming around anytime soon."

"She looks terrible! What happened to her?" There was a slight ringing sound. _Ohh, my back feels warm..._

"I dunno, but she was in a tree, shouting insults at some Red-eyes when I found her. And giving some guy relationship advice."

"Now ya gotta be pullin' my leg."

"With her, it's possible."

"Mmm," I wrapped my arms tighter around my pillow. It wasn't as soft as usual.

"Gyack! Can't breath!"

"Just how close are you two?"

"Too close right now! Get 'er off!" Hands took a firm hold of me, and pulled me away from my warm bed. I made a displeased noise and tried to hold onto my pillow tighter. "GYACK!" Now more hands made me let go. Why were people being so mean?

I yawned and cracked my eyes open. Yuri was looking down at me, smirking as if he'd just seen something funny.

"Whaddaya wan'?" I yawned again.

"I honestly can't think of what to say right now," he told me. I blinked a few times, and finally it dawned on me that Yuri wasn't just looking down on me, he was holding me. Turning my head, I saw Chase rubbing his neck, Estelle hovering in a concerned do-I-need-to-heal-someone way, Karol and Rita craning their necks to see if I'd woken up, and Raven with a knowing and somewhat perverted grin plastered across his face.

They'd all just seen me carried in on Chase's back. "..." And _hugging_ him in my sleep. ". . ." And now being held by YURI. "_. . ._" I looked back up at him. "I've got no words for the present situation either."

He dropped me. I generously forgave him, as he was probably holding back a dam of joyous emotions that could only be expressed in song and dance.

Fuck I needed more sleep.

Since landing on the ground didn't hurt as much as I would have expected, I figured out that Estelle must have already healed my back. Such a dear. She rushed forward to help me sit up again, and steadied me when I discovered a bout of vertigo waiting for me. "Ugh..."

"Are you okay? What happened?"

"We found the pieces of a Red-eyes broken knives in an alley, so did they have something to do with your latest vanishing act?"

"Nnngh, yeah. Turned out there were more than one of those guys. The others got the drop on me and knocked me out. They'd already carried me off to the middle of nowhere by the time I woke up and kept me under guard the whole time. Umm, they kept me in this shack that looked like it was used for storage, and mentioned something about a green haired woman hiring them to kidnap me." There were a lot of raised eyebrows at that. Chase grunted a bit, but maybe he was trying to make sure his throat was still working properly.

"...Maybe it's actually Letha who's cursed," Estelle eventually suggested. If it were an anime, I would have sweatdropped.

Karol stroked his chin, "She is the one with a mysterious mark on her hand." I could almost swear Raven's ears twitched at that. Or my overactive imagination was over reacting. Too worn out to read people...

"She does get in more trouble than the normal idiot could," Rita threw in.

"Hey, from what I've heard, you people had problems before I joined. Stick with blaming the real cause, Mister Lowell."

"Hey, come on! It's not like all this is normal for me either! I was a regular guy in the Lower Quarter."

"I doubt that." I stood up, nearly launching myself into a forward roll, but managed to keep my feet and balance. "Somebody, get me to a bed!"

"Ooh, wanna share mine?" Raven asked.

I blinked, wondering how I'd missed that leading phrase. "Sorry, I'd steal all the blankets and kick you onto the floor."

"Alright then, let's go back to the inn," Yuri decided, and they all ushered me back into the city. Oh yeah, seemed the whole time we'd been standing just outside the gates. "How'd you get away from the Red-eyes? Chase said you were in a tree when he found you."

"Ah, well my friends, it's an epic saga of three full days of being bored to tears, followed by a resourceful use of available means to make my daring escape!"

"Which means?"

"I sat in a corner for three days, then someone broke a lamp and I used a piece of glass to cut my ropes when they were sleeping."

"Guess that's what they get for sleepin' on the job. So hard to find good help these days," Raven sighed.

I heaved a sigh of my own. "I have a bad feeling I might see some of them again someday. They seemed like the types to hold grudges." Blinked. And again. "When I wake up again, can someone give me some real food?"

"...To celebrate your return, we'll have Flynn cook you something." _DAMN YOU YURI LOWELL!_

x x x

Oh bejeebus, it's dawn. I just couldn't stop writing. So many funny things happening, because I'm in a funny needs sleep frame of mind. A lot of stuff just happened as I was writing, so this chapter didn't go as far into events as I thought. I think it was worth it though.

Yuri's gonna have Flynn cook for Letha...his revenge for making everyone worry is scary...

Oh, and I bet I added to the apparently growing YurixLetha fanbase. Some people will see that scene's similarity to the PS3 scene with Patty. NOT INTENTIONAL, IT JUST HAPPENED. I was looking at the screen, wondering, "Where will this go?" And then he DROPPED her. And then I remembered Patty.

Remember, vote if you haven't that's only a chapter or two away! (unless fairies stick their noses in) And if you have any requests, feel free to mention them in a review or pm!


	25. Chapter 25: Day Off and Send Offs

Update, yay?

It's a week til Christmas, and I have no money to actually buy presents. So I've been working on paintings and talking to people I haven't seen in a long time. The most important painting is nearly finished, so I should be able to put more concentration into the request fics soon. They WILL go up!

Now to move on to some awesome stuff that made Christmas come early for me...

AccessBlade wrote a short fic about how the group reacts to Letha going missing in Nor Harbor. Some of you may have seen this already, and those who haven't should go check it out. It's called "Missing."

The Fool Arcana made some more fanart of Nevys, who will never live it down. (remove the spaces) Http:/ thefoolarcana .deviantart .com/art /Nevys-190072788? q=gallery%3A the fool arcana%2F25039027&qo=0

She also made a ToV amv on youtube that's dedicated to me. I want to say THANK YOU~ again, and tell anyone who doesn't know that Innocent Sorrow is an awesome song.

I got my 100th review from AccessBlade, coincidentally my first reviewer, so another THANK YOU~ for that.

And responding to Angelic's review: I'm happy that you returned to read the rest of the chapters after seeing the profile picture. Your vote has been noted, and that scene will be SOON.

Speaking of the poll, this chapter I'm NOT telling you the results. If you're curious, I think you can see the progress if you check it in my profile, but let's preserve the illusion of surprise.

x x x

Chapter 25: Day Off and Send Offs

x x x

Once back at the inn I fell right into the bed the others said was for me. There weren't any other beds, so I figured they must have rented me my own room so I could rest and recover. Humming my contentment (almost purring, if you will), I pulled the blankets up to my chin and dropped right into deep sleep. If I had any dreams, I forgot them.

I woke up early in the morning. Lying on my bed, I stared at the ceiling. _Hmm, I'm not sure when I got back yesterday, but maybe sometime in the mid afternoon? Wow, I must've slept over twelve hours._ I have done that before, but never consecutively. Usually I wake up for an hour or so and then go back to sleep. Maybe I'd done that and just didn't remember. Whatever, probably didn't do much even if I had.

No longer feeling like the corners of my eyes were full sand, or that the lids were made of lead, I was able to concentrate on thinking. _Yesterday. I don't think I actually killed any of the Red-eyes. The only one I seriously hurt was the weaponless one, and if he was treated fast enough he'll probably make it. Gibbs and Birdman will probably be out for my blood, for pride and pigheadedness. Umm, Chase definitely killed Thin Man and Big guy. That leaves two..._

The One Who Fed Me and Mr. Shy got off relatively easily. They might just pass this off as a failed job and move on. Four or five of the original seven were still running around then... If I saw them again, I might not get away without killing one. I sighed, _no good thinking about such depressing thoughts now. Just do what the situation demands when it comes, and deal with it then._

I fingered the scar that stretched from my collarbone and across my right shoulder. It was from the fight in the alley, and because I'd been captured it had gone days before someone healed it. Being left alone so long not even gels or Estelle's arts could keep it from scarring. I wondered if the slash across my back would also leave a mark... Reminders that I couldn't stay soft.

My stomach growled and I wrinkled my nose. "Food and shower. ASAP." I swung my feet up and down (sound familiar?) and lightly landed on the wooden floor. I'm part cat, I swear. Padding quietly to the door, I cracked it open and peeked out. Other than some staff getting started on the early chores, no one else seemed to be up. A maid was passing by and I quietly called out to get her attention.

"Miss? Will it be a problem if I take a shower? Or a bath perhaps?" Normally I prefer a shower, but some days you just need to soak!

"Of course it's no problem!" _Gyah! Radiant Professional Smile attack! _She bowed slightly. "I'll draw bathwater for you immediately, and if you'd like, I'll wash your clothes while you bathe?"

I beamed at her. "You are the best person in the world right now." She smiled professionally again, but there was a light in her eyes this time that said she enjoyed the praise.

"Right this way, ma'am." _Ma'am? Oh well, she's working, and I think I'm actually older than her._

x x x

It was roughly two hours before I was downstairs, tying my damp hair in a ponytail at the base of my neck (except for the braid, that was left hanging free to avoid getting a weird kink in it). The maid had done an amazing job washing the blood stains out of my clothes (How'd she do that so fast? Even the old stains were gone!) and I was basking in the sensation of being _clean_.

My restored sense of "life is wonderful"died with the first bite of breakfast.

A few minutes before, when I had arrived in the common eating room, the rest of the group was already there waiting for me. Raven wasn't there, so he must have left again after I'd fallen asleep. Was someone else missing? Right, Judith also left the party immediately after leaving Ghasfarost, so she hadn't been with them the night before.

Karol had called me over to the large table everyone was seated at and told me breakfast should be arriving soon. It was only while I sat with a fork of _something awful_ in my mouth that I realized no one else had started eating and were watching me with expectant looks on their faces.

I slowly removed the fork, and asked, "Who made these pancakes?"

"Flynn," Yuri told me innocently. _No wonder they were waiting for me out here. Probably wanted to make sure I didn't see Flynn at work in the kitchen_.

"What...why are pancakes crunchy now?"

"He added cereal for a more balanced nutrition."

"Why did you let him?"

"'Cause you could probably use the added nutrition." He couldn't hide the smirk on his face anymore. The others also looked like they were discretely hiding smiles or trying to hold in laughter, Estelle doing a better job than Karol and Rita. Even Repede looked like he was laughing at me. "You know, after being prisoner for three days and not having real food."

"I don't think this counts as real food either." I placed my fork back on my plate. "Is there anything here that's safe to eat?"

Now Yuri looked at the plates doubtfully. "I dunno. Only saw him get started on the pancakes..."

The next half hour was spent daring each other to try different foods to see what was safe. Estelle discovered that the donuts (don't know how he made those) actually were really delicious, so that's what most of us stuck to. The worst part was when I tried taking a drink of water to clear the fishy taste from the bacon (what the hell?) out of my mouth, only to discover that _somehow_ the water was _spicy_.

"Just how did you get Flynn to cook breakfast!" I asked Yuri after returning from the bathroom. Yeah, I had run off as fast as I could to rinse that mess from my mouth before I got physically sick.

He was watching Karol try to get Repede to eat his own pieces of fish corrupted bacon, and not succeeding. "Err, well, it seems he heard about me promising to have him cook something for you, and actually felt obligated to do it. He was already in the kitchen when we woke up..." _Flynn's the Wonder Chef of bad cooking now... The Anti-Wonder Chef!_

I glared at him. "So this is your fault." I noted that the others were giving him similar looks. At least he'd apparently warned them before we ate.

"Sorry, my bad."

x x x

We took the rare chance to relax and each do our own thing for the day. After all,everyone else thought we'd taken care of everything, and I couldn't tell them otherwise. Estelle had apparently managed to beg one last day before returning to the capital. Rita seemed willing to put off her research in order to stay with us a bit longer. The three of us went out for a girls' day kind of thing.

Translation, Estelle was excitedly looking in shop windows and exclaiming about "How cute that dress would look on Rita!" or "Letha, why don't you try this on?"

Rita adamantly refused, but I sighed in resignation. "If it'll make you happy, I'll try it on, but I'm not gonna buy it!" The dress Estelle picked out for me was white with red trim. Its short skirt flared out from my hips. I was even wearing some red earrings I'd noticed on a display. She squealed when I came out of the changing room.

"Wow, you look really good in that!"

"You actually do look kinda mature for once," Rita admitted.

"Funny," I said, "Dresses make me feel like a kid trying on her mother's clothes." Maybe because that was always the case when I actually did try a dress on. I fidgeted, feeling exposed with my legs bare, but Estelle wouldn't let me keep my shorts or leggings on under it. Well, they weren't really bare, but I always thought tights weren't even a step up from nothing at all.

"Are you sure you won't buy it?" Estelle wheedled.

"No, and anyway I'm pretty much broke." I sighed. The funds Ludwig gave me had run out, and I had none to restock my supply of gels with.

"Excuse me, miss?" All three of us looked over at the older woman running the shop. "The lady trying on the dress." I nodded to show I was listening. "If you need money, you could help out here. My son normally helps me, but he was hurt during the fighting the other day."

"Really?" my eyes lit up. Getting a part time job was never this easy back home. "But I'm not planning on staying in Dahngrest for more than a few days..."

"That's fine, even just one day would be a big help."

"Alright then, I definitely need to earn some gald before I leave after all." I turned to Estelle and Rita. "Sorry guys, but I guess I'm staying here." The princess seemed a little disappointed, until the shop lady whispered something into her ear. The way she immediately brightened up was surprising.

"Okay, we'll come see how you're doing later!" The princess grabbed the mage by the hand and dragged her out of the shop, chattering happily about stopping by a cafe. Rita didn't seem to know what to make of it either.

"So what do I need to do?" I asked the lady. She smiled sweetly at me.

x x x

"What are you doing?"

"What are you _wearing_?"

I blushed as Yuri and Karol both stared at me. "This, um, I'm just helping out at this shop..."

"And the clothes? Don't tell me it's for work."

"Kinda..." I looked down at my feet. My pink slippered feet. The bunny ears on my head flopped over. I was still wearing the dress Estelle had me try on, but Jeanne, the lady who owned the shop, had thrown in a frilly pink apron, bunny ears, and delicate little slippers. And a bunny tail that unfortunately the guys had seen before I turned around and realized they were there.

"Oh, more friends of yours Miss?" Jeanne showed up out of no where. "You youngsters should stick around, it's about time for her to change into the next costume." _EVIL, I have seen the face of the devil, and it is a kindly old lady wearing bifocals!_

"The next costume?" Yuri asked, and I didn't have to see to know he was smirking. I shuffled into the back room to change, hoping they'd be gone by the time I was done.

"Of course!" Jeanne was telling him cheerfully. "It's a clothing shop, but we carry costumes as well. Having a young lady show off how they look is great advertising."

They were still there, waiting, when I came back out. And Estelle and Rita had come back, so I'd bet my wages that that's what the old lady told Estelle to make her so happy. The princess squealed again when she saw my new outfit, and Rita seemed a bit jealous.

A black cat suit, complete with ears and tail. And a big red ribbon with a bell around my neck. When I stared back at them Yuri and Karol actually blushed a bit. I smiled as I recalled a skit about Rita's waitress costume, where Yuri said that the cat ears were the problem (implying he thought they were too cute. Cat ear fetish...).

"Mrowr." I said. Not the cheesy fake "meow," I actually sounded like a real cat. Years of mimicking my pet cat Sophie (who knew we were mocking her, and was very vocal in her displeasure) had given me plenty of practice. I turned away, the tail flicking behind me, and went to help a customer.

"...I think she likes that one," Karol finally said.

They kept dropping by every now and then for the rest of the day. Somehow Estelle always seemed to know when I'd changed again. Usually the old lady just had me show off normal clothes, but occasionally she'd give me another weird costume. I had lots of fun cackling my head off while wearing the witch costume.

There was one in the men's section I just had to try on though. When they came back again (Yuri was probably just doing it so he could laugh at me later) they seemed taken aback by the different direction my outfit had taken. While the shop owner had been choosing stuff that was embarrassingly cutesy and feminine, I had picked a blue uniform with long gloves and boots. And glasses. And unlike with the other costumes, a light brown wig.

I pushed the glasses up on my nose. "Can I help you?"

"Letha...aren't you dressed..."

"Hmm? Is there something wrong with my appearance?"

Estelle suddenly seemed to recognize the outfit. "Wait, isn't that what one of the characters in _Tale of the Jade Planet_ wears?"

"Oh, the princess is well informed."

"She seems kinda different..."

"Don't tell me she's trying to act like the character."

"Now really, why would I do something like that?" Fiddled with my glasses again. "You all have such overactive imaginations."

They stared at me. I smiled faintly back at them. If only my eyes were red...

"...We'll come back later."

"Leaving so soon? You youngsters have so much energy," I called after them as they walked away very quickly. Jade Curtiss is awesome.

_Letha earned the title of Crazy Cosplayer..._

x x x

I returned to the inn late in the day, with a money purse full of gald. Jeanne had been beaming at me when she payed me, saying she'd given me extra since her business had done better than usual. There was a calculating gleam in her eye when she said I was free to come help out again anytime I was low on money.

But she let me keep the Jade costume, so I was perfectly willing to forgive her for being evil. It was tucked into my bag for later use. It had also been restocked with gels and some basic foodstuffs, just in case I didn't get another chance to go shopping before the giant Entelexeia attack I was anticipating.

I was humming as I came through the door, Lala's Lullaby version of Lacrimosa again. Songs I learned most recently tend to become the default on my internal playlist, as I try to make sure I've memorized the words properly.

The others looked up as I came in, and I noted the heavy atmosphere in the room. "Something wrong?"

"Estelle and Rita are leaving tomorrow," Karol told me glumly. I reached out and ruffled his hair a bit. Been awhile since I'd last done that.

"Don't look so sad, Ace, or that'll just make everyone feel sad. We can all visit each other any time, after all!"

"Yeah, that's right," he brightened a little bit, but still looked like he felt a bit lost. Couldn't blame him, at the moment he had nothing to work towards, and was just kinda waiting for Yuri's yes or no to starting up a guild. Probably felt left adrift with the prospect of us all leaving.

_Well, what comes next is a delicate situation. If the timing is off at all, we might not end up in a group together like we're supposed to_. Very unappealing idea. When I'd started traveling the whole plan to join up with the group was just for convenience (and a bit of fangirlishness) but hadn't been necessary. Now I really didn't want to have to travel alone.

"Hey, I'm sticking around for a bit, you know?" I rubbed his hair a bit harder to distract us both. "Haven't decided where I'll go next."

"Why don't you join that guy from before?" Karol asked as he tried to smooth his hair back into place, the rooster head...

"Who, Chase? Do you think it's a good idea for a delicate and proper young lady to travel alone with a virile young man? My uncle would not approve."

"I'd feel bad for Chase," Yuri snuck into the conversation. Repede barked, and I glared at the swordsman and canine.

"Ha ha," I laughed insincerely. Though, to be fair, something always seemed to go wrong for the poor guy every time we ran into each other.

"Actually, I think he left earlier today." We all looked to Estelle in surprise. She smiled a bit sheepishly, "I wanted to thank him once more, for helping us look for Letha, but they said he'd already checked out."

"Darn, I was hoping to at least say goodbye to him..." I hadn't known him long, but Chase seemed like a pretty nice guy. He'd taken all the trouble we came with in stride after all. "Hey, I know Yuri met Chase last time we were here, but how about the rest of you?"

"He just came right up and began talking with Yuri when we were looking for you," Rita told me. "Told us he'd found the pieces of those swords that Red-eyes like to use. So did a bunch of other guild members we didn't know," Yuri looked away to hide a smile, so I thought I could guess who they were. I was starting to wish I'd asked the names of the guys who'd lent us their flare capes...

We didn't talk about our plans again, everyone seemed to want to forget for a little longer that it was our last night together. Yuri and I teased the others, Rita punched Karol, Karol fell for our jokes, and Estelle smiled and laughed with us. A few times she tried to get Repede to let her pet him just _once_ before she left, but the dog would have none of it and kept moving away from her. Once he walked over to Rita and flopped against her legs, nearly knocking her over.

It should have lasted longer, we should have stayed up late just being friends and not worrying about anything (well, except for me who was worrying about GIANT BIRD ATTACK in the morning), but it ended too soon. Estelle and Rita needed to turn in early, as they each had a full day of travel before them. The guys and I seemed to lose the will to stay and talk longer after they left, so we also went to bed early. I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling for a long time, and wouldn't be surprised if the others did the same.

x x x

"It's too bad we've gotta split up," Karol mumbled. He and I had come to see off Estelle and Rita, leaving Yuri to sulk in the inn. _Yes_, the swordsman was sulking. Not quite as bad as he had in the game, there he'd also been dealing with the fact that he'd just killed Ragou in cold blood. Sure that wouldn't bother him _that_ much, but I always figured he hadn't wanted to face pure and innocent Estelle after that.

Plus, he was clearly of the opinion that she shouldn't be running back to the empire, even if he didn't say as much. Point is, he was sulking and didn't come to say goodbye.

"Please come visit the castle anytime," Estelle was saying, directing her words to both Karol and me.

"They'll really come if you say that," Rita "warned" her.

"What, didn't she just invite us?"

"Huh... Idiot..." _Aw, come on Rita! You know she meant it! And you're happy about it too!_

"With the treaty it'll become easier for guild members to enter the capital," Karol continued, not bothering to figure out what Rita had been implying.

"That's right." _Dialogue even I remember...yaaawn..._ A bit rude of me, but sorry, it wasn't much more than small talk meant to delay the inevitable.

"Princess, we should be going," _says nameless Empire Lackey A._

Her face fell, "Oh, yes." _Hmm, here in the game Estelle promises to try and get a more appropriate punishment for Ragou, and that's when everyone else finds out he's "missing." But they already know that..._

Instead Rita went ahead with her next lines. "Well, I guess I'll be going, too. I want to check out stuff like those aer krene." She hesitated a bit, then looked away as if embarrassed, "When I finish my analysis, I'll...um...pay a visit to the capital, too."

Estelle reached out and grabbed her hands in an energetic shake. "I'm looking forward to it!"

The embarrassed mage spluttered, "O-okay then, see ya!" and ran off before we could see her blush.

"Ain't she adorable when she's being all shy?" I grinned.

"...Karol, where will you go from here?" Estelle asked.

"I want to start up a guild with Yuri..."

"That sounds like a good idea." The look on Estelle's face pained me. She clearly thought it sounded like a _really_ good idea, and wanted to stay and see the guild her friends made. But her smile tried to cover that up. She looked to me, "Letha, are you going to join their guild?"

"Huh?" _Woah, I hadn't really thought about that._

"Yeah!" Karol looked up in excitement (guild boss radar, potential member alert!), "You should join too!"

"But...I need... I'm looking for something, you know." _Umm, right, they all still think I'm looking for clues about Sophia's ruins...to find out more about the mysterious tattoo on my hand._

"You could still keep looking," the guild ace seemed to be warming up to the idea. "You might even be able to find some clues while on jobs!"

I was strongly tempted to say "yes." How cool would that be, to be a member of Brave Vesperia? But..._the guild laws..."all for the guild, and the guild for all." ...I can't. I'm hiding too much, and I can't even say it's for a just reason that I'm lying through my teeth all the time_.

I shook my head, "I can't answer you right now. Not yet."

"Oh..." _Damn, now I've ended this goodbye (temporary as it is) on a down note._

Empire Lackey A cleared his throat. "Your Highness..."

She nodded, "Sorry. I'm ready now."

"Shouldn't I...go get Yuri?" Karol asked uncertainly.

"No...I wouldn't want to wake him."

I snorted, "By all means, wake him. With a bucket of water." _Just because he claims being here would make it harder for Estelle and Rita to leave, doesn't mean he's right. Not seeing him here is probably just as painful, even if it's so like him_.

Estelle shook her head, but at least she giggled a bit at my words. Then she followed the Empire Lackey towards the exit of town. I immediately started feeling antsy, (_how long til Phaeroh comes?)_ and had to fight the urge to run after her to make sure we didn't get separated for real after all.

Karol couldn't stay to watch her leave, he turned and scampered back towards the inn. I almost didn't manage to keep up, he took me by surprise. I stopped and waited outside the inn, knowing the boy had gone inside to try and talk Yuri into coming out to catch Estelle to say goodbye. Well, that's what the game did.

So I was looking right up into the sky when Mega Ultra Chicken appeared (Yugioh Abridged Series... good for people who like the show, good for people who hate the show). So, Phaeroh showed up and caused an uproar among the crowds as he flew around the city. _What's the big deal, he can't get past the barrier...can he? Entelexeia are affected by barriers too...like Ent back in Caer Bocram. _Well, even if he couldn't, it was justifiable to freak out about a GIANT BIRD flying around your city.

Karol and Yuri came crashing out of the door behind me. "Monsters?" Yuri breathed in disbelief. "Karol! Any idea what that thing is?"

"No, I've never seen anything like that before..." Phaeroh swooped lower. "It's coming down!"

"Come on, Karol, Letha!" Knowing this would happen, I was right behind the swordsman when he took off running towards Dahngrest's bridge.

"What? Hey, wait!" Karol ran after Yuri and me.

x x x

_**One Mess after Another**_

_Yuri: Just when I get to relax...I get dragged into another mess!_

_Karol: Yuri, fate really is out to get you!_

_Yuri: Hey, it's not all my fault. You both had roles in this, too!_

_Karol: But I never ran into gigantic monsters or got arrested by knights before I met you!_

_Letha: Same here actually, despite all the trouble I seem to attract myself..._

_Yuri: Well, things didn't go bad for me until I left the capital with Estelle._

_Karol: ...So that means..._

_Yuri: Drop it. Keep moving._

_Karol: R-right._

_Letha: Personally, I just prefer to blame everything on Nevi..._

x x x

We reached the bridge at Dahngrest's entrance, where Flynn, Sodia, Witcher, and loads of knights I didn't know were in various states of collapse and exhaustion. Phaeroh was hovering nearby, not even looking winded. _Though I don't now how you could tell if he were..._

Flynn tried to push himself back up to his feet, leaning heavily on his sword, and Yuri rushed over to his friend's side. "What is going on here?"

"Yuri," Flynn noticed us for the first time, "Protect Her Highness..." He fell heavily to one knee again.

"Yuri, look!" Karol pointed, and now we noticed the pink and white figure further down the bridge. Estelle was kneeling by several downed knights, trying to heal them. She looked up just as Phaeroh turned away from the knights to look her over. He was seriously only twenty feet away tops, almost no distance for something as big as him.

Phaeroh was distracted again when Witcher threw a fireball at his face. "This way, foul fiend!" _Midget's got guts..._ Sodia was on her feet again two, using both hands to hold her sword steady. Even if most fans hated her (I don't exactly, just don't like how all the scenes the game gave her end in "Die Lowell!" vibes), you had to admire her for standing her ground to do her duty.

But Phaeroh had already dismissed them, _talk to the wing, bitches! Okay, need to not do that again._ He and Estelle were staring each other down and I saw her lips move, though we were a bit too far away to hear her line. ("Is it coming for...me?" or something like that.)

Yuri and Karol were running to Estelle, but I paused when I heard Flynn's disbelieving, "The Commandant... But why is he here...?" I looked back to see Alexei and some of his personal guard joining our little party.

He stopped to survey the scene of loss on the bridge. "Our finest Knights...! I am left with no choice..." _Oh boy, oh crap oh crap oh crap..._ I took off to catch up with the others before the fireworks started. Behind me I heard Alexei calling out orders for Heracles to prepared for use against the "beast."

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap, running running running!" I muttered as I caught up with the others. In my head the words had my oldest brother's voice. At least I _thought_ it was his voice.

Ahead of me Yuri had reached the princess first, and I was finally close enough to hear her exclaim, "Yuri!" in relief. Phaeroh took another fireball to the face, and this time rose up higher into the air with a single beat of his wings.

There were blasts of explosions and large gunfire from Heracles and shrieks of pain and anger from Phaeroh. Orange bursts of fire in the air and purple flashes from barriers that it looked like the Entelexeia was throwing up in defense threw multicolored light everywhere.

The others watched the light show and fight in awe. "What is that...?" Yuri breathed.

The princess knew, "Heracles..."

"Whoa, we've gotta get out of here!" Karol cowered and ducked instinctively as an explosion burst in the air fairly close to us.

_Animated cut scene time!_ Part of my mind cheered, and another part started screaming at it to shut up and make sure I didn't get killed. While I was having my internal argument, Yuri had gotten Estelle's attention and was looking her straight in the eyes. "I'm going to leave the city and continue my journey," he told her with resolve.

Her eyes widened, as if she already knew where this was going but couldn't dare to believe what he was offering. "What do you mean?"

"If you're going back to the capital, you shouldn't keep Flynn waiting." She looked down and away. "It's for you to decide." _So indirect, Yuri, but it's better for her to actually think options and choose on her own..._

"Then I..." She looked up at us all, "I want to continue the journey as well!"

Yuri smiled and took her hand. "Now, that's what I wanted to hear." _YurixEstelle shippers go wild...but Yuri is oblivious to female psychology_. Both his words and my thought were cut off by an explosion _right above our freaking heads!_ Well, a bit further down the bridge actually or we all would have been fried, but it seemed like it was above our heads! We all turned away and raised our arms to shield ourselves from flying debris as we ran to escape the blast.

Aaand, there's Judy, standing calmly on a not-destroyed section of the bridge and staring up into the sky at Phaeroh. I realized this would be the first time I saw her without her armor on. "Judith?" Estelle pulled to a stop and ran back to the Krytian. "Don't! It's too dangerous!"

"Look who's talking," grumbled Yuri good naturedly (despite the flying death! and things blowing up!) as he fell back to the ladies' sides.

"I'll be fine, you go on ahead," Judith told them as calmly as if we were discussing getting good seats for the Fourth of July.

Estelle grabbed her hand anyway, "Come on, quickly!" and dragged Judith along with us. Which meant I didn't have to.

"My, you're a stubborn one." Phaeroh, who had just finished his private discussion with Judith (telepathy for the plot device win!) gave one last cry and started flying away from the city.

"Huh? Why's it taking off?" Karol gasped.

"Yuri, Lady Estellise, wait!" _Oh yeah, Flynn gives us a send off. Though that's not what he meant to do_. He was standing on the other side of the brand new gap in the bridge. Biiiig gap, he'd had to shout to be heard and it was barely enough.

Estelle stood on the very edge of the gap, I prayed she wouldn't slip and fall into the water, in order to shout back at Flynn. I couldn't help but feel the moment was a bit ridiculous, a _princess_ explaining her reasoning at the top of her lungs. Hoping the others didn't notice, I had plugged up my ears to mute the sound to a more reasonable level.

"I'm sorry, Flynn. I realize now I can't just go back to the capital. There are too many things I still need to know." Flynn said something, I could no longer make it out, but Estelle shook her head. "The voices of the people suffering in Nor Harbor never reached the capital. I won't achieve anything if I'm not willing to approach these problems head on... I've come to realize that during my travels. That's why! That's why I have to keep going!"

"Good speech," I said (fingers still in my ears), "I totally agree with you." Karol was giving me a funny look. "What? I can hear her!" Judith seemed amused.

Yuri didn't pay attention to me, instead winding up his throwing arm and chucking something at Flynn. _He really has an amazing pitch, I should try and get him to learn baseball. Not that I actually like baseball._ "Flynn, get this core back to the lower quarter!"

Flynn caught the aque blastia core, a feat nearly as impressive as Yuri's throw, and looked up in confusion. "Yuri!"

"I won't be going back to the capital anytime soon. I'm going to start up a guild." Karol's head shot up and his mouth fell open. "Give my regards to Hanks and everyone else."

"Yuri...!" the boy couldn't find any other words to express his happiness.

Again, I couldn't hear Flynn with my fingers in my ears, but I knew what his response basically was. Something about now understanding how Yuri was going to do things his own way.

"Yeah, I've finally made up my mind."

More stuff I coudn't hear from Flynn.

"Take care, Flynn." The look on the knight's face said he'd been cut off and wasn't happy. Ignoring that Yuri started walking away, the rest of us falling into step. I let my hands fall from the sides of my head, smiling at the swordsman and princess as they looked questioningly at me. Nobody commented (same old, same old from Letha).

As we were walking away Yuri started talking with Karol. "I suppose I should've talked to you first, but here's to our new guild, Karol."

"Right!"

Estelle bowed one last time to Flynn and we left Dahngrest behind.

x x x

Silly stuff has a way of working itself in and pushing the serious stuff back to other chapters...

So...anyone remember that skit where Estelle mentions Tales of the Jade Planet? I remember it, and how in the comments on that video people were discussing whether it was a reference to Tales of the Abyss. For the sake of a plausible Jade Curtiss cosplay moment, it _is_. And note that I haven't played Tales of the Abyss either... I saw the first volume of the manga, and when I found out it was adapted from a game I read the game script. Probably the first Tales of game I'd heard about.

Keep an eye out for the requests!


	26. Chapter 26: Vesperia's Birth

Kept going and going and going and yet I still didn't get as far as I'd hoped to. Then I thought I'd make it extra long, to give you all a treat for waiting patiently, but it got stuck and refused to keep going. So I cut it off, and have nearly finished the next chapter already. It'll be posted very soon!

For anyone who hasn't noticed them, the fics I've written for my Christmas Requests Special are up under FTaBV Omake. I'm still working on omakes for people's requests, and there've been good responses to the ones I've finished already. I am not taking any new requests right now, unless you come up with an idea that interests me very, very much.

Review response for Angelic: (If you even remember the review you left...*sweatdrop*)

**You should all be thanking The Fool Arcana for the Jade cosplay scene**. Again, _I'll_ thank her for inspiring that scene, as it was great fun to write! There are a few more ideas for that costume thanks to her! Fanart of Letha in Jade's costume is a bit beyond my means at the moment, though I would love to see it. But Letha will never be quite as epic as him because she's too chicken to try on red contact lenses.

x x x

Chapter 26: Vesperia's Birth (or Holy Crap, It's A Guild!)

x x x

So this wasn't the first time we left town running (well, not full out running, but in a hurry. More like vigorously power walking). At the very least we'd left Halure much like this, and back when it was just Yuri, Estelle, and Repede the trio would have been interested in getting out of Zaphias quick.

It may or may not be clear that I don't like traveling quickly for long periods of time. Sure, sure, I can walk all day long and not care as long as my shoes are good, but make me sprint down the block and I'll be gasping and flipping you the finger (only did that once...). My stamina and endurance had improved a bit since Nevi dropped me in this public transportation deficient world, but that didn't make me like it any better.

If I'd been dropped into _The Lord of the Rings_ and found myself running with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli across Rohan for three days, I'd definitely be going, "Screw this! Guys, the hobbits aren't even going to _be_ there once we find the pile of dead orcs! Can we just take our time going to the creepy forest to pick up Gandalf, who will miraculously be alive and waiting for us?"

Though if I'd had the chance to join the fellowship, I'd probably opt to wait out the run ins with Ringwraiths, Sauron, and the war all together and just hang out in Rivendell. Talking poetry and riddles with Bilbo.

But no, I was running through the plains directly outside Dahngrest with a group of people intent on getting us all lost in the nearest forest so the knights who may or may not be following us, or the giant bird who may or may not be trying to kill one of us, won't actually find and/or kill us.

_Just what did I do that put me on _this_ particular life path? I mean, yeah it's a bookworm's dream come true, but the reason it's a dream is because no one believes this could happen!_

Finally Karol lagged behind and stopped altogether, bending over and planting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. The rest of us came to either abrupt or gradual stops (depends who you're talking about, Yuri and Judith were in better shape than Estelle and I) and looked back at him. Furthest ahead, Repede sat down on the ground to wait for us.

If not for the half remembered advice from a friend that took track, I would have sat down for a breather myself. She told me that doing that, or bending over like Karol was, is actually more likely to give you a heart attack or stroke. So I'd forced myself into the habit of standing hand on hips and straight when I was winded.

It was weird what random trivia I could remember, as opposed to the stuff I'd been wracking my brains out over.

"I know we've got to get out of town, but I'm dyin' here," Karol got out between gasps. _You know, I'm glad we have someone much younger here. Or else I'd be the one tiring out first and whining for a break._ I hate to realize I'm whining, though I do it anyway.

"You're just not used to a little morning exercise," Yuri told him.

"I've always been of the opinion that people who like exercising first thing in the morning are crazy," I grumbled. Seriously, get up at the crack of dawn to run five miles? Voluntarily? Just for a warm up? Insanity!

Yuri shook his head at me, perhaps thinking I wasn't one to judge what qualifies others as crazy, and tried to urge the younger boy back into the race, "It's not much further. Come on, Karol."

"Just how far are we going?" Judith asked him. Yep, Judith was still running the marathon with us! Though I hadn't really been up to holding a conversation with her beyond a simple introduction. Felt my breath had more pressing things to be spent on. The fact that she hardly seemed any more winded than Yuri was a small blow to my pride.

Yuri cocked his head slightly while considering her question. "I guess Heliord's our closest destination. So at least until there." _Heliord, where we..._I blinked and a slow smile spread across my face. _Heliord is where we pick someone to distract a guard with "feminine wiles." Damn, if I can get Yuri to dress like a woman for that, I can die happy. And I probably will, because he'd kill me for making him do that_.

Judith noted that I wasn't paying attention to the conversation (about the likelihood of a break anytime soon). "You seem happy about something."

I grinned innocently at the krytian. "Mmm, just looking forward to a good run and a break."

x x x

_**The Monster Spoke?**_

_Karol: ...Hey, you mind if I ask a question? I need to be sure of something._

_Estelle: What is it?_

_Karol: That big monster we saw... It was talking, right? Like, our language._

_Estelle: Yes, I heard it with my own ears._

_Yuri: You all heard it, too? I guess it wasn't my imagination, after all._

_Karol: Who's ever heard of a monster that speaks a human language...?_

_Estelle: ...Just what is that monster...?_

_**Starting A Guild**_

_Estelle: Yuri, I was a little surprised to hear that you're starting a guild._

_Yuri: Well, it's not like I'll be doing it all on my own._

_Judith: Did Karol give you the idea?_

_Yuri: Yeah, but I'd been thinking about it myself for a while now, too. I quit the Knights to find my own way of doing things, but I hadn't done anything._

_Estelle: What Flynn said to you back in the port town... That got to you, didn't it?_

_Yuri: Nothing that guy says could get to me._

_*Yuri leaves*_

_Judith: He doesn't like to admit his feelings, does he?_

_Estelle: No._

_Letha: Trying to act cool all the time... Maybe he thinks if he doesn't then it's another victory for Flynn._

_Estelle: What do you mean?_

_Letha: They're friends, and they're rivals. Flynn's doing well as a knight and always seems very sure of himself. Yuri wasn't getting anywhere, so if he'd lost his cool on top of it all, that would make it worse. But now with the guild, they're nearly even again._

_Judith: So you're saying he's just competitive._

_Letha: Maybe._

x x x

To my relief we returned to our usual pace for traveling once we reached the trees. Though forcing our way through the dense foliage on paths that may not have actually been used by people, ever, was just as tiring. We took the occasional time out from walking only to fight monsters that ambushed us out of nowhere.

Same stuff we'd been seeing for awhile, weird lizard things and so on. They were familiar enough that I didn't even need to spam my artes to kill anything. I took it as an opportunity to observe Yuri and Estelle's fighting styles some more, though they were also finishing their fights up quicker than usual.

Watching Judith fight was interesting. I've read in a number of fantasy books that a spear is one of the great weapons, in the hand of a master it can hold the advantage in almost any situation. Not that I knew enough about using them to really have an opinion. But seeing Judith leaping high into the air and freakin' impaling monsters made me willing to believe it.

I held my peace while Yuri, Estelle, and Karol discussed how unbelievable it was to hear a monster speak. Personally I didn't think the idea was so hard to accept, even back on Earth there are some pretty amazing animals. The Lyre bird is actually capable of reproducing the sound of nearby construction (a bird that sounds like a chainsaw?), and even the sound of tourists' _camera shutters_ or a _car alarm_ for its mating call. Thinking that only humans could learn to communicate with our language is pretty narrow minded.

Judith and I did eventually have a proper chat with each other, between fights.

"When I met everyone in Ghasfarost, they were worried about a friend who'd gone missing. I take it that friend was you." She carelessly tucked the single blue hair that had come out of place back behind a long pointed ear (which I'd been trying not to stare at). That was seriously the only sign that she'd just taken on two lizard monsters and a giant turtle (...I named it Bowser) by herself.

"Yeah, bit of a long story that even I don't totally understand," I told her a bit sheepishly. I wondered if Judith might have remembered me from our run ins when she was posing as the Dragon Rider. Though at the time she would probably have been more focused on rogue blastia, endangered Entelexeia, and Rita flipping out.

"What's the short version then?"

"Umm, short version?" I considered how to fit those days into a nutshell. "I was kidnapped by assassins, tied up and dumped in a shack in the middle of nowhere, and managed to piss off all the assassins and give one some much needed relationship advice during my escape three days later."

"Sounds like fun," she responded without a hint of sarcasm.

"Oh, it's real funny in hind sight," I said airily, "though at the time I was bored out of my skull."

"Do you know why they targeted you?"

"Now that's the part I don't get. Apparently somebody hired them, but I don't know who or why."

"Hmm, maybe it was a secret admirer who was too shy to meet you." My mouth worked uselessly for a moment while I searched for something to say to that.

I coughed a bit uncomfortably, "Well, seeing as the one who hired them was apparently a woman, I hope that isn't it."

"Oh? Maybe your admirer is so shy he asked someone else to arrange it for him."

"Jeez, just how likely do you think that is?"

Judith just shrugged slightly, "Well, you never know." I could tell this was going to be an interesting relationship.

x x x

"What happened to taking a break?" Karol's words of course. Though I'd been able to keep my mouth shut and not start whining only because I knew he'd speak up sooner or later.

"It's probably a good time." Judith looked back over her shoulder, "Looks like no one is following us anymore." Yes, several times we'd heard the sounds of what may have been armor through the trees, and I think at one point I heard a familiar loud voice in the distance yelling "Lowell!" The knights are persistent to say the least.

"...How can you tell?" Estelle asked.

Judith tapped a finger on her chin thoughtfully, then said, "Hmm, intuition I suppose," with a smile. _Intuition probably has a name, and it is probably either Ba'ul or Phaeroh._ Eyes in the sky must be useful...

"Intuition...?" Karol said with disbelief, but Yuri took this explanation in stride.

"Anyway, we should be fine here," the swordsman directed the conversation away from the newest member's quirks of personality. "Let's rest for now."

Though it wasn't audible, it was almost like there was a collective sigh of relief. Everyone found a relatively comfortable root or rock to sit on and dropped their bags nearby. I eyed my options, a moss covered rock and a non-moss covered rock, and finally opted for the bare stone. I don't trust plants I can't identify when I'm about to sit on them...

After we'd had a few minutes off our feet, Karol spoke up again. "When we have time to take a longer rest, we've got to decide a few things about our guild."

"What is it with you and taking breaks?" Despite his words, there was a friendly twist to Yuri's mouth as he looked over at the younger boy.

"What do you hope to accomplish by starting a guild?" Judith asked, her question directed to the group as a whole.

Yuri blinked at her question, apparently not having thought beyond the general idea of "We make guild, we fix the crap the Empire does." Well, maybe not like that but...

"Accomplish...? Hmm..."

"I want our guild to become _really_ big," Karol said with enthusiasm. "And then someday we'll follow in the Don't footsteps and protect Dahngrest ourselves. That way, I can show him my gratitude for all the years he's defended the city." I frowned slightly. I never liked Karol's reasoning here...while there wasn't anything wrong with it, per say, it was superficial and naïve. It was apparent that Karol hadn't thought of anything but the great shining pedestal of respect he wanted to be standing on at the end.

_Give him a break, he's twelve years old and caught up in hero worship_.

But he was also about to become the boss of a guild, a position that required more maturity and a sense of responsibility.

_And that will come, you already know it will, so shut up and don't rain on their parade. Let events run their course_.

"That's a wonderful dream, Karol," Estelle told him, a slightly dreamy look in her eyes.

"I'll just stick with the boss, here," Yuri waved his hand in Karol's direction. I grinned again. I always got a kick out of imagining what the guild might be like, say, ten years later. Karol as a competent boss and Yuri as his right hand man and advisor. Thinking of it that way, I was sure that even if the guild didn't reach the Don's level, it would still be big.

Karol was stuttering, "Huh? B-boss? Me?"

"You were the first one to bring up this crazy idea."

"H-heh, I guess you're right," _he is so obviously liking the idea of being the boss_. "So, what's the first order of business?" Bright eyes shone with excitement as the boy practically leaped off the stump he'd been sitting on.

"To calm down." Karol sat back down with a sheepish laugh at Yuri's words. _Yeees, right hand man knows how to handle his boss_.

Judith giggled, "You make guilds sound like fun." _They make it sound like a club in their new tree house..._

"Why don't you join the guild as well, Judith?" the princess suggested to the krytian.

Her head tilted as she raised a white gloved hand to the air between her chest and chin in her "thoughtful pose." "Hmm, I wonder. Do you think they'd let me?"

"The most important thing," Karol informed us, trying to be serious but still coming off as an excited child explaining the rules to a game, "is obeying the guild's laws. Those who break the laws will be severely punished. Even friends or family." _Another moment where his enthusiasm bothers me...he practically relishes the idea of no exceptions, but clearly hasn't really thought about having to punish his closest friends... He wouldn't speak so lightly of it if he had_.

"The laws are the source of a guild's pride. No one can be admitted without making a solemn pledge to uphold them." _Treehouse cluuub_. But seriously, despite this first impression it had given me, I thought the Brave Vesperia guild was a very good one. _But even if they'll let me, do I want to join...?_

"And what are the laws of your guild, Karol?" The princess's question got the enthused young ace to start thinking about the here and now again.

"Umm..."

Yuri crossed his arms and thoughtfully stared at the ground for a moment before saying, "Everybody supporting each other and always acting with the guild in mind. Striving to always do the right thing, while punishing those who don't." I blinked at the last part, and thought of Ragou. _But Yuri wouldn't expect the others to turn vigilante like he did..._

While I was caught up in my own thoughts, trying to figure out what he'd been thinking with that last bit, the others kept talking. Estelle summed up the laws as "all for the guild and the guild for all. Do justice and punish the unjust." _New club motto_.

"Everyone's opinions will be valued, so long as it doesn't go against these laws," Yuri elaborated further.

Karol looked touched, "Yuri... That's just what I..."

"Right, boss?" Yuri smoothly handed Karol the credit and spotlight.

While Karol confirmed those lines as law, and Judith was accepted into the fold as another member of the guild, I thought hard to myself.

If I were to join the guild, I wouldn't have the ever present fear that I might have to leave the group once I ran out of excuses for traveling with them. When separated I wouldn't have doubts of being left behind. These fears and doubts might have little to no foundation, but they were there nonetheless. _It's not like I'm afraid of being forced into doing anything I wouldn't agree with. They're all good people with a sense of right and wrong. If I did have a reason for disagreeing with something, they would hear out my reasons and discuss them._

_So why do I feel like I shouldn't?_ Maybe it was because I didn't belong in Terca Lumireis. Maybe because I felt that I couldn't expect them to trust me as a companion and guild mate when I willfully hid what I knew. Hell, I even knew the name of their guild before they did!

_Or maybe I'm afraid I'll be forced to break their laws_. After all, I couldn't hope to even begin guessing at what the fairies were up to behind the scenes, and they had a lot of say about what I did.

"Okay, so from today on we'll be your new partners, Judith." The conclusive tone in Karol's voice brought me back out of my own musings. I was just in time to be paying proper attention when the boy swiveled on his stump to face me on my rock. "What about you, Letha? Did you think some more about joining?" Yuri raised an eyebrow.

"That's right, you said you'd think about it this morning," Estelle recalled. And I found myself to be the center of attention without a clue what I should say.

"Uhh..." A small voice in my mind, myself momentarily trying to gain new perspective by pretending to be someone else, told me, "_You're just gonna keep going in circles gettin' nowhere this way. Say 'yes' already and shut up!_"

I was hesitant a moment longer, but impulsively made my decision. "Alright then. If no one has any objections I would also like to join." If things became complicated because of this later on, then I'd deal with it later on.

No one clamored to list reasons why I couldn't join, so Karol cheered, "Yeah! Now it's your turn to swear a pledge to the guild's laws!"

"Well..." I paused briefly. "I swear...I swear to uphold the guilds laws, and always do what I believe is right." _In my own way, _I thought,_ even if no one understands why._ I would have to rethink my plans for my tour through Terca Lumireis, and consider whether being a (mostly) passive observer really was the best action to take.

"Okay, let's call it a day for now," Yuri decided while noting the sunset orange quality the light had taken on. Apparently we'd been dodging knights and fighting monsters longer than I'd thought.

x x x

Unfortunately the others hadn't been prepared for our abrupt departure from Dahngrest, so we had no tents. Only a few mats, and we'd have to take turns keeping watch for monsters. I missed the funny smell that kept the tents safe all night...

Having always been a night person, I volunteered for the first watch. Much better than taking forever to get to sleep, only to be woken up halfway through the night. Karol cooked dinner, beef bowl, while Judith looked on in interest. Hopefully she would turn out to be a decent cook.

Once full everyone parted to find what comfortable pieces of ground they could to sleep on. Yuri apparently wasn't ready to sleep, so instead restlessly walked around camp to talk to everyone. _Let's see...he has one of his encouraging chats with Estelle, because she's wondering (again) if she should really be wandering around outside of Zaphias. Talks to Karol about guild stuff... And has a chat with Judith in which she's one hundred percent honest and one hundred percent mysterious._

I watched from the corner of my eye as he talked to each person. At one point Karol went, "Oh!" and then "The Super Ultra Courageous Braves!" and I facepalmed. _Please, oh please, do not let something have changed so that name sticks to our guild!_ That was a weird thought, "our guild." My guild now, and as cool as that was it felt very sobering. I really was in Tales of Vesperia, and it wasn't just a game anymore.

_Holy crap, I'm a member of the Super Ultra Courageous Braves..._

While Yuri was talking with Judith out of hearing, Karol started tossing around on his mat. Finally, I asked, "Too excited to sleep?"

He took that as an excuse to stop trying and sat up. "Yeah, it's like I still can't believe this isn't a dream."

Smiling, I carefully added some wood to the fire and used a handy stick to rearrange it better. _Years_ of camping experience and watching my dad tend the fire right there. Then I stood up and walked over to sit near Karol, positioning myself so I wasn't looking directly at the fire. Preserving my night vision so I could be more effective as a watch man.

"Would it help if I told you a bed time story?" I asked teasingly.

"The last time you told us a story, you left a dead monster in the hallway," he retorted suspiciously.

I raised my right hand, "I solemnly swear I will not turn it into a prank."

"If you really mean it..."

"Would I swear by it if I didn't mean it?"

"Letha's telling another story?" _Woah, Estelle's book senses alerted her!_ The pink haired girl adjusted her bedding so she was closer to us. "Do you mind if I listen too?"

"Uh, not at all," I was a bit bewildered. Don't I usually write my stories better than I tell them? But they were coming back for more. _Wait, what story am I going to tell this time?_ After mentally dithering for a bit the first words that found their way out of my mouth was, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit."

x x x

Of course I needed to explain what a hobbit was, and established that the story was not meant to take place in Terca Lumireis (I substituted the name Middle Earth with Midgard, the Norse name for the human populated level of the world. I'd noted many variations of the name used in fantasy literature and games). Estelle and Karol accepted this readily enough, and were pretty interested in the story. But it had been a long and tiring day so they dropped off to sleep not long after Bilbo and the Dwarves set off on their own adventure.

Looking around (still avoiding looking directly at the fire) I saw Judith had settled down where she'd probably been near enough to hear without really being a part of the story telling circle. She was also asleep... Yuri was half lying down, half leaning against a tree, with Repede curled nearby and sword within reach. Even with his eyes closed I wasn't positive he'd gone to sleep yet.

I tugged the fingerless glove off of my left hand, and spent the rest of my watch staring at the tattoo while brooding to myself. About what? Same stuff as usual, and no new solutions presented themselves to me in an epiphany accompanied by a choir of angels. A choir led by Kratos from Symphonia. _Okay, weird train of thought is a sign that I should wake someone up for watch and go to sleep now_.

Waking up Judith felt weird since we hadn't personally been acquainted long, Estelle and Karol had seemed so tired that I didn't have the heart to wake them, so guess who the process of elimination left as my choice. It wasn't hard to wake Yuri up, the threat of a monster attack probably made him sleep lighter or something, and with a grunt he sat up against his tree a bit straighter.

Yawning, I turned away to return to my own bed, but was stopped by him softly calling my name. I looked back over my shoulder to see what he wanted.

"I didn't think you were interested in joining a guild."

"You never asked," I shrugged a bit. "Well, I didn't really start thinking about it until Karol told Estelle he wanted to make a guild earlier. They asked me if I'd join, and the idea kinda followed me since then."

"What about your own plans?" He looked pointedly at my left hand, still bare in the night.

"Well, I don't have to abandon my search, but it's not exactly like I have much to go on. This feels more productive than just wandering aimlessly and hoping I'll get lucky." I studied the few stars I could see through the branches. "Do you have an objection to me joining? You could have said so earlier, I wouldn't mind."

"Why should I object? Because you're hiding stuff from the others? Nothing wrong if you don't want to share, just as long as you don't hide anything that we need to hear about." Yuri was definitely pushing less than he used to. By chance I glanced in Judith's direction when I looked back down from the stars. _Ah, that's right. He didn't push to hear Judith's reasons either, because by now he has his own secrets he doesn't want to share. Especially one big secret that starts with "R" and ends with murder..._

I shook the thought from my head, lest I give some subconscious signal that I knew about that. Again I made for my own bedding, this time without him calling me back.

x x x

The next morning my wake up call was Repede's cold, wet nose in my face. I woke up rather disoriented, thinking my dog Cane had somehow gotten into my bedroom despite the closed door. Took me a few minutes to remember that one, Cane had passed away, and two, I wasn't in my room to begin with.

Breakfast was some rice balls somebody had thrown together, and everyone packed our gear away again while we ate. Karol was already hyped up for a new day and chattering on about the guild (_still can't believe I actually joined_).

"I hope we can find some work to do now that we've made our guild."

"Easy, tiger," Yuri chuckled as he folded up his mat. I watched his motions silently and copied them with my own mat, though a bit less efficiently. "...So, Estelle? What are you gonna do?"

"I want to go looking for that talking monster," her blue-green eyes glinted with determination as the princess announced her decision. "If it was me he was after, I want to find out why."

I bit my lip and continued to listen without a word. Judith also folded her arms and set her mouth in a line that seemed determined not to give anything away. It wasn't noticeable, I saw only because I knew to look for it. But when Karol and Yuri went back and forth about not having any idea where to look for the talking monster she relented a bit.

"That was no monster. His name is Phaeroh." Now the center of attention, the krytian provided a vague story about her friend (*cough* Ba'ul! *cough*) telling her about Phaeroh while passing through the sands of Kogorh. I had to bite back a groan when I realized we were eventually going to be traipsing through a desert...

Right, the others established that even though a few rumors weren't a lot to put faith in, it was the best lead for Estelle to find Phaeroh. Meaning what came next was, "Yeah but...are you thinking of going all the way to a place like that alone, Estelle?" from my new boss (woah, _weeeird_).

"Huh? Well, I ..."

"If we don't keep up this little bodyguard operation, she'll really march off on her own," Yuri cut in wryly. "What do you think? Let's take this as our first guild assignment."

"Hey, you're right! We'd be breaking our own laws if we let her go alone," and this realization just made Karol's day.

So we quickly decided that Estelle, being our first client, would have to pay up. But because it was Estelle (and we all knew she wouldn't try to skip out on the bill) she could pay whenever worked for her. Yeah, gotta love our laissez faire way of running things... "This way we can all continue the journey..." she breathed while looking up at the bright blue sky.

"All right, Super Ultra Courageous Braves, fall out!" _Must. Not. Hit. Boss!_ Please Estelle, fix our messed up name?

"Wh-what is that?" Her tone was equal parts shock and bewilderment, with a dash of horror thrown in.

"Huh? That's our guild's name!" Looking to Yuri and Judith, I could tell by their barely concealed grins and stifled laughter that _they_ weren't going to be much help with this. _Come on, guys! Do you really want to have that name hanging over us from now on?_

"We can't go with that! We need something easy to say that has a real snap to it!" I love how it was the only person who wasn't an actual member that was having the biggest say in this.

Karol was scowling to himself, trying to think of another name. Yuri shrugged a bit at Judith, then looked to me. "Do _not_ look at me." I flapped my hands in a 'no way' gesture. "Naming turtles is one thing, this is another." Okay, in all honesty? Sometimes I'm good with naming things, sometimes very baaad. The turtles had been awesome because they were spur of the moment inspiration.

Estelle finally got her wonderful idea. "How about something like...Brave Vesperia? It's the star that gives off the brightest light in the night sky..."

Everyone gave their appreciative consent, mine a bit more enthusiastic (_Oh thank God that didn't change_). And _finally_ we set our sights on the road ahead. "Let's get to Torim Harbor and charter a boat! We're off on an ocean voyage to the continent of Desier!"

"Didn't you want to take a break at Heliord?" Yuri worked into Karol's excited spiel.

"Aw, who needs it?" the new boss dismissed.

"Either way, we can't get to Torim without passing through Heliord."

"So it would be in our best interests to stop over while we're there, and stock up on things we didn't have time to bring with us when we left Dahngrest," I said, feeling I'd been too quiet despite the important nature of our planning.

"I'd also like to see how they've been doing since the blastia went out of control," Estelle told us.

Karol rose up to his new responsibility as the guild's final decision maker, "All right, we'll just stop in for a quick look around the city." He punched a fist up into the air, "Okay, I'll try again. Brave Vesperia, fall out!" Repede barked excitedly, and I strangled the random urge to yell "Ooh-rah" or "Semper Fi" or something else that might get questions. (Curse you NCIS instilled urges!)

x x x

_**The Guild's Purpose**_

_Karol: We picked a name, made laws, got our first job... We're a pretty respectable guild, now!_

_Yuri: But are four members really respectable?_

_Letha: *to herself* Oh dear Lord, I'm really a member..._

_Karol: Why not? The Dark Wings—the famous thieves' guild—they only have three members!_

_Judith: Quality over quantity._

_Yuri: Too many people get to be a headache. I prefer a small group. But you can't follow in the Don's footsteps and defend Dahngrest without a few more bodies._

_Karol: Yeah, I guess... But if we just put one foot in front of the other, I know we'll be big some day!_

_Judith: So then, you're saying we can take it easy._

_Karol: No way! We've gotta give this guild 110 percent!_

_Yuri: Hah hah. Aye aye, Captain._

_Letha: Baby steps going full speed ahead._

x x x

But after that, _nothing_ interesting happened all day. Just a lot of walking and more walking and occasional fighting. Estelle and Karol eventually asked me to tell them more of _The Hobbit_. Judith and Yuri listened in with some mild interest. (I think Yuri liked Gandalf's occasionally sneaky maneuvers. He smirked a lot when I got to the part where the wizard imitated the trolls voices to distract them long enough for the sun to rise.)

Oh, there was one other notable event while traveling. I suppose to others it would be funny...

During a fight the strap of my bag snapped, and a lizard monster tried to run off with it. I ran after the little bastard screaming something about turning it into a replacement bag and matching shoes if it didn't drop my stuff immediately. Happily for me it was Repede who intercepted the monster and killed it with a sharp blow that broke it's neck.

"Thanks Repede!" I gave the canine warrior a pat on the shoulder as I bent down to pick up my bag. He leaned into the contact a bit before trotting off again as we moved on. As I knotted the ends of the strap together I noticed Estelle giving me a wide eyed look. "What?"

"You-Repede-How did you...?"

Slinging the temporarily repaired bag back over my shoulder, I grinned at her. "Aww, you just have to give him space and let him get used to you. I've had a knack for getting animals to like me, or at least not outright hate me, for ages." I didn't tell her that I'd also noted some animals just never got used to certain people, like how our cats always avoided just one of my brother's friends. I was pretty sure Repede was just doing it to mess with her. _Pretty_ sure...

We arrived in Heliord late in the afternoon. Looking around the streets gave a feeling of emptiness, with very few other people besides our group.

Estelle looked around with concern. "Oh my... Doesn't the city seem less busy than before?"

"Yeah. This place has gotten a lot more...ghost-towny," the swordsman confirmed as he watched a nearby shop clerk close and lock up early. Business seemed to be far from booming.

The others huddled a little closer together while discussing a rumor about people going missing (where and when did they hear that?). I strained my ears and...yes, I might have been imagining it but I thought I could hear the pounding of hammers and other construction related noises.

Everyone paused to note the way Estelle was staring at nothing in particular, deep in thought. "She has to do something about it," Yuri announced.

Realizing she was the "she" the swordsman meant, the girl looked at us all with wide eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You can see it on her face," Judith remarked.

Karol took charge again, "If that's the case, we should go to the inn and have a strategy meeting first. After all, we need to go check on the blastia too." _Let's see...nope, didn't personally cause any trouble this inn keeper will hold against me. Onward!_ We all followed Karol's plan of action, Estelle trying to defend her compulsive need to help others while we just smiled and nodded... Heck, like we were ones to judge.

And the other girls teased Yuri for being such a nice guy and making Karol happy by starting a guild with him. I refrained from joining in, since I was secretly plotting to get him to put on a dress and seduce the guard.

Probably wouldn't work out that way, but who could blame me for wanting to try?

x x x

Kind of...just stopped here. And when I tried to think of how to make it keep going, it wouldn't. So I started the next chapter, and that really took off! Should be up within a few hours at the earliest, or by tomorrow night at the latest.

And seriously, I had no idea whether I'd have Letha join the guild or not. Right up to where she said "yes" I thought I'd have her say no. There was seriously a voice from the mass of unformed ideas in my head that yelled at me to cut it out and have her join. But no, that voice will not be returning in any way, shape, or form in the rest of the fiction.


	27. Chapter 27: Bad Romance!

Gyah! Cold got worse over night! I blame my brother! At least I could write without anyone bothering me to get up and do something.

This chapter...it's _the_ chapter. Finally get to the guard seduction after all the build up (took way longer than I thought it would). Hopefully it lives up to the suspense and what not. Apologies in advance if the character you voted for didn't make first place.

x x x

Chapter 27: Bad Romance!

x x x

Not much to say about the rest of the day. We rented two rooms at the inn and all gathered for a quick meeting in one. But the only thing we decided on was that we needed more information, and to restock on supplies. For the last few hours of the day we split up and tried to ask around town while each tracking down the items on our own shopping lists.

Yuri had been about to give me a list of ingredients we needed when my stomach growled. He'd paused, then given the list to Karol and I got one listing gels and panacea bottles instead. I had rolled my eyes at that, but didn't argue since it was probably just as well. Bread had been on that list, and it would have been too much of a temptation.

I met a few people who told me acquaintances had gone missing, some of which had mentioned finding a job that would make their life easier before vanishing. One young woman I talked to burst out in tears, sobbing that her boyfriend had disappeared. She, however, was convinced he'd been cheating and was avoiding her. From her ramblings I'd gathered that his name was George.

…

Yeah, so when I returned to the inn I reported no definite information other than that people really were disappearing. Or all avoiding each other. We decided to call it a day and try again in the morning.

I couldn't fall asleep right away, so I was lying still in bed to see if that would help when Judith quietly slipped out of the room. Rolling out from under the blankets, I tip toed to the window and watched the krytian walk a short distance away from the inn before stopping. Not long after, Yuri appeared outside as well. _Riiight, more talks for gauging the mystery woman's intentions. Won't take long_. I went back to bed to try and trick myself into thinking I was asleep again.

x x x

Everyone woke up at different times the next morning, so Yuri had left a message with the inn staff to meet up at the barrier blastia. Being the last one to get the message (I took advantage of the inn's showers again) I was the last one to arrive. I walked around the blastia (no closer than necessary, it was stable but I had a grudge from last time) when I heard a small boyish voice exclaim, "The Scary Lady!"

"Hey there, Pauly!" I grinned at the familiar bouncing topknot that was all I could see of the boy hugging my waist. He let go again and stepped back, his mother placing her hands on his shoulders in a subconscious gesture to keep him from wandering off. Though he didn't seem to have a mind to, Repede was sitting within petting reach. The boy was running his hand through the tolerant dog's fur in delight.

"I'm very sorry," she apologized to me, "I can't seem to get him to use your name whenever he talks about you."

"It's alright, doesn't bother me at all," I assured her. "Least he doesn't call me that because I actually scare him." I looked around at the group that had been watching the scene with varying levels of amusement or heart-warmed smiles. "What's up?"

Estelle filled me in quickly with, "Kellas was just telling us that her husband, Teagle, is one of the people missing." So that was her name, not one that really stood out in my mind.

"Don't you have any hunches?" Yuri asked Kellas.

"Yes..." She looked down a bit, holding Pauly a bit closer as if to protect him from whatever had happened to her husband. "The night before he disappeared, he talked again about working to become a noble."

"Become a noble? What do you mean?" Estelle asked slowly, as if the pieces were already starting to fit themselves together in her mind.

"When this city is finally completed, we will be able to live here as members of the nobility."

"Huh? That doesn't sound quite right."

The princess's words startled the poor mother. "What do you mean?"

In recital mode, Estelle told her, "The rank of nobility is reserved for those whose service has earned the emperor's confidence." Her eyes had drifted closed, as if to help her quote a passage verbatim.

"B-but, Sir Cumore gave his word to us! He said we would be welcomed as nobles!" Pauly fidgeted as if his mother's arms had gotten a little too tight. Her grip relaxed a little and she patted him soothingly on the head.

"Cumore..." Estelle was thoughtful, "From the Imperial Knights?" Repede gave a low growl at the name.

"Yes. He is acting as the current magistrate of the city." Oh dear, this family really had bad luck with corrupt magistrates... And Yuri is on call for specialized pest control!

"I'll bet he is..." the swordsman muttered scathingly. _...I'm gonna want to not be between him and Cumore at any point in the future_.

Karol was rubbing his chin and frowning at the stone courtyard. "That is strange, though." He gestured with his hands unconsciously as he began spelling out his thoughts to us. "I mean, the imperial throne is empty and all."

"But then... Then why have we been working this hard? And what about Teagle...?"

Responding to the sad tone of his mother's voice, Pauly twisted in her arms to look up at her. "Is father not coming back...?" That little catch in his voice just tugged violently at the heart strings. Kellas tried to reassure him with hushed words we couldn't catch.

It got to Estelle too, who turned to the rest of us with the familiar look that said she was planning on getting involved. "Hey, Yuri..."

"You're gonna ask me why we don't take this on as a guild, right?" he finished for her. Instead of answering, he turned to Karol with a look that said it was his call. Following his lead, we all stared expectantly at the boy, who seemed startled to realize Yuri wasn't taking charge.

"I promise to take care of her fee when I pay my own," Estelle preempted the little boss.

"Well...okay, that's fine."

"What?" Kellas gasped as she realized we were volunteering to help her family again. "But I..."

Seeing she was going to protest, something along the lines of not wanting to trouble us or couldn't accept charity maybe, Judith cut her off. "So this means our next job is finding a missing person."

"We were already looking into these rumors anyway, no reason we can't find Teagle as well," I added, hoping Kellas would feel less like she'd pushed us into this.

"And if Cumore's up to his usual stunts, we'll just have to slap him around till he stops," Yuri finished.

"Right. The Knights do exist for the protection of the people, after all," the princess concluded. I grinned a bit, remembering a video on youtube that someone had edited so it was Estelle throwing that rock at Cumore, and it was more than just once... I'd had the odd impression that it hadn't seemed so out of character given her impassioned speech about him having no right to use his status to abuse people.

Karol didn't seem to like the glint of mayhem he saw in some of our eyes. "L-let's just make sure we're careful. The Knights could squash a little guild like us if we get on their bad side."

"Not if they don't know it was us," I pointed out. Karol gave me a pleading look so I shrugged and didn't push it.

"As you wish," Yuri conceded.

Estelle knelt down to look Pauly in the eyes. "We'll find your father, I promise."

So the first order of business was to find that platform with the guard so we could establish a need to seduce said guard in order to sneak in. I looked around, and once I took a few steps so I could lean and peer around the barrier blastia I finally found it.

"Hey guys, a guard would only stand guard if there was something worth guarding, right?" They stared at me, and I blinked when I belatedly realized the weird tongue twister my question had been. "Sorry, I meant that there wouldn't be a guard over there," I pointed him out, "unless there was something at the bottom of that lift that the knights didn't want just anyone to find."

Catching on first, Yuri waved a hand for us all to stay back out of sight and wait. "Careful, remember? Careful..." Karol hissed after him.

Going right up to the guard, the swordsman very matter of factly said, "I'd like to pass, if I could."

The guard's metal helmet moved from side to side in negation as he held his spear in a "you shall not pass" position in front of the lift. "Sorry, no can do, buddy," his voice echoed from inside the armor. _Sounds a bit like Alphonse Elric! Except much older, and less likeable..._ "The laborers camp ahead is too dangerous."

"Hmph..." Yuri eyed the guard and the lift, as if wondering if he could push past or knock him out before the alarm was raised. With a slight shrug he turned away peacefully and returned to our little huddle behind the blastia.

Once Yuri was out of punching range of the guard Karol gave a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness..." When the man was back with us the ace told him, "Knowing you, Yuri, I thought for sure you'd try to force your way through..."

"Well, 'proceed with caution,' and all that. Boss's orders, y'know." Yuri grinned.

"But you thought about it, didn't you?" Yuri stiffened a bit when I said that, then gave me a mildly hurt expression. Though a slight smile still tugged at his mouth..

"What? Of course not!"

"He really did," Judith observed. He shrugged at us and dropped the innocent act.

"Just a bit."

"But how should we get by the guard?" Estelle mused aloud.

"I really think forcing our way through would be the simplest and most effective way in." Judith cupped an elbow in one hand while raising the other to tap lightly against her jaw. She had such interesting yet graceful mannerisms... Completely contrasting with her blunt solution to the problem at hand.

"No, I won't allow it!" Karol protested. "All we need to do is draw the guard away from his post."

"I'd have to agree," I voiced my own views on the matter, "We _are_ in the middle of a city run by knights, after all. Forcing our way in without attracting attention would be nearly impossible, and inadvisable if we plan on coming back here ever again."

Karol seemed relieved to have my reasoning on his side. "Th-that's right!"

"But how will we do that?" Estelle asked us both.

"...Maybe by, y'know, seducing him with feminine wiles?" I had to grin at that. Really, Karol, the youngest member of our entire group and probably still new to his first crush on Nan (I'd bet it was his first), was actually the one to suggest seduction? He probably didn't even know exactly how far seduction was usually supposed to go.

"Well then..." Yuri was sizing up the different members of our group. Before he could nominate anyone as most likely candidate, I tried to steer this ship the way I hoped it would go.

"You know, I bet with the right dress and a bit of make up, Yuri could do it." They all stared at me wide eyed, though Judith raised a hand to hide a smile (Repede just yawned). "Well, doesn't it make sense? Whoever we choose can't carry a weapon without looking suspicious, so we should choose the person most capable of defending himself against a fully armed knight." I had to struggle not to laugh at the slight horror in Yuri's face when he realized the reasoning was convincing enough that the others might take it seriously.

He narrowed his eyes at me dangerously, and before anyone could say anything to further damn him he retorted, "What are you talking about? If anyone is suited to fighting unarmed with a Knight then it's you. You've done it before, back on Ehmead hill." _Oh crap, the aikido_.

"You'd still be a better fighter than me, you're stronger after all," I tried desperately.

"That weird fighting style doesn't leave injuries, so Captain Karol won't have any reason to object." Having successfully turned my logic back against me he smirked. "And back in Dahngrest you were really getting into trying on those dresses. This shouldn't be that different."

I flushed in embarrassment, "That-that was just a job!"

"So is this," he said calmly, "You're not gonna turn down a job for the guild, are you?" The others had been watching this exchange, their heads going back and forth like they were watching a tennis match.

"I-I..." I couldn't think of anything that would save me!

"Hey Estelle, you think you and Judith could find something more appropriate for Letha to wear?" _Craaap! He used the secret weapon and got the princess!_ The realization that she'd get to dress me up again swayed Estelle over to his side. In seconds I was swept along by her and Judith (who must have decided dressing me up would be nearly as much fun as dressing Yuri up). Karol gaped at how fast the girls had dragged me off, and at my voice ringing back at him and Yuri.

"I'll have my revenge for this, Lowell!"

x x x

_**Reluctant**_

_Letha: I don't want to do it..._

_Estelle: Don't be silly, it wasn't so bad last time, was it?_

_Letha: That was different, I didn't have to-to... Ugh, I really don't want to!_

_Judith: Oh my, a girl shouldn't turn down the chance to dress up._

_Letha: Why do you all hate me?_

_Karol: She's really not going to forgive you for this._

_Yuri: She started it. Besides, knowing her she'll eventually get into it and have fun._

x x x

"Woah! Judith, don't pad that!"

"No no no, just-just no."

"Nope. Can't walk in these. End of discussion."

"Eee! No! Stop brushing my hair, please! You can do whatever you want with it, just _please_ let me brush it myself!"

"Quit fussing," Judith scolded as she brandished what looked like mascara. I froze, no longer trying to jerk my head away from Estelle with her brush, and sat obediently still as the krytian applied my make up. I never fight the make up artist (aka: my mom, my best friend, whoever else talks me into trying it on...) since I don't want them to accidentally stab me in the eye. Estelle nearly glowed with happiness as she curled my hair and arranged some of it in a high pony tail. Since I wouldn't let her undo the braid, she looped it up and wound the end around the base of the tail.

We'd spent nearly an hour of haggling with a tailor, Judith pulling out materials we'd had no idea she'd been carrying, and the girls grudgingly accepting that pink was _not_ a good color on me. Finally they'd thrown together an ensemble they deemed acceptable.

At first Estelle had suggested a few cuter styles, but Judith shot those down and soon had the princess on the track of more risqué articles. A tight fitting red halter top that was attached to a black lace choker around my neck, with a teasing v-neckline. Judith ignored my flustered protests when she added some padding to the bust ("The point is to seduce him, isn't it? A little extra won't hurt."). It also left a section of my midriff bare, and I noted that my more active lifestyle of constant travel and fighting had caused me to lose a bit of weight. And added to my collection of scars, which Judith hid with make up.

A mini skirt made by what looked like alternating layers of red and black gauzy fishnet material. I fervently refused to put it on until she also picked out a pair of black shorts. Very short shorts that wouldn't be noticed under a skirt. But it was enough to sooth my ruffled feathers.

When Judith pulled my gloves off (again, I protested) her eyebrows had raised in surprise at the tattoo on my left hand.

"Ooh, this is lovely."

"Gimme some gloves."

"But it would be such a shame to cover it up."

"Shame or no shame, if I screw up it'll become an easy way to identify me." And with my luck it would choose now of all times to glow again.

"Fine," she pouted at my spoilsport attitude. "I'll find something that goes..." In the end she chose a pair of long white gloves that laced up the side of my arms with red ribbons.

After I tossed the stiletto heels Judith presented me with, the krytian gave me a pair of knee high black platform boots with buckles. They added roughly three inches to my height. Suddenly being only two inches shorter than Yuri was pretty weird.

All that was left was the finishing touches, Estelle and Judith chattering happily to each other and occasionally going "oh, why don't we try this?" as they played with my hair and brushed make up across my face. By that point I had given up fighting and glowered at the men where they were watching from across the room.

The tailor looked quite pleased with himself, Karol looked utterly baffled at all the necessities a girl needed for a "date," and Yuri looked like he was getting a stitch in his side from trying not to laugh at my miserable expression. Repede didn't really care about the proceedings, human sensibilities about clothes and seduction probably all seemed ridiculous to him, so he was waiting outside the shop where the tailor wouldn't be having conniptions about the dog near his wares.

The whole nightmare couldn't end fast enough for me.

x x x

Once we returned to the barrier blastia's courtyard, everyone else had a minor shoving contest in order to have a good view without being seen from behind the giant blastia. Karol was short enough that he could just stand in front with out being in anyone's way, and Yuri lost because he didn't have the heart to push Estelle. Judith won because she's Judith. I left my bag (nearly bursting with my normal clothes inside it) with the princess before preparing myself with a deep breath. _How the hell do you seduce someone? Well, just great, I have no idea what I'm gonna do, but I suddenly have Lady Gaga stuck in my head again..._

With the chorus of "Bad Romance" playing in the back of my mind ("_I want your love and I want your revenge, you and me could write a bad romance~!"_) I left the safety of the blastia's shadows before I could lose my nerve. I swayed my hips a bit as I approached him, the skirt bouncing slightly with the motion. "Excuse me, are you Jeremy?"

His armor rattled as he straightened a bit. "What? No, I'm sorry miss-"

I smoothly cut in. "You see, my friends said they arranged a blind date for me, and to look for the Knight that would be waiting in the blastia's courtyard." I paused and tried batting my eyes a bit. Didn't have any trouble blushing, I was embarrassed enough already. "I've always admired the Knights. You must be so _brave_ and _strong_ to have joined." _Flattery can indeed get you places if you know how to use it._

"Uh, well, yes..." Armor rattled again as he shook himself. "I'm sorry miss, you have the wrong man." _Drat, almost had him._

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" My hand flew to my mouth and eyes widened as if shocked. "I'm so sorry, they must have wanted to play a prank on me." Lowered my eyes and sniffed a bit. "I feel so humiliated."

"Er, please, don't feel bad..." His armor squeaked a bit, as if he'd raised an arm but didn't know what to do with it. _Still not moving though..._

I stopped my sniffling and peered up at him through my eyelashes, "Perhaps...you wouldn't mind going out with me?" Moved in close enough to take his uselessly raised hand in both of mine.

"I-I'm engaged to someone though..." _But you're not pulling your hand away_.

Leaning forward, I wrapped my arms around his arm loosely and laid my cheek on his shoulder. "But you're not married yet? So it should be okay?" Lifted my head up to whisper around where his ear should be, "Just one night, and who would know...?" _Oh God, Mom, Dad, your little girl is SO SORRY!_

"One night..." just as he lifted his arms, as if about to try and hold me closer, I slipped away again and bounced just out of reach. I winked, took one of his hands, and started tugging him behind the blastia into the shadows. He followed a good deal more eagerly than he'd been just a moment before.

And once I'd led him past where Yuri was hiding, the knight never noticing the dark clad vigilante lurking in the shadows, the swordsman stepped up and knocked him out with a quick punch aimed just so. First thing I did was let my hair back down with a slightly pained hiss as its weight settled again. _That's why I hate putting it on top of my head..._

Yuri gave me a look. "Jeremy this time?"

"Well George is already dead. A girl's gotta let go of the past and move on to new things." He snorted.

Karol sighed as the others joined us, "And you hit him anyway..."

"We couldn't really ask her to go all the way. She's a Black Widow, after all, poor guy didn't know what he was getting into." I whacked Yuri with one of the white gloves I'd just removed.

"All the way?" Karol looked at us in confusion.

Estelle had her own question as she returned my bag. "Why do you keep calling her that, Yuri? What is a Black Widow?"

I paused with one arm through my green coat, and both Yuri and I stared at the two naives. Our eyes met, an unspoken message of "_we really don't want to explain this"_ passed between us, so we looked to Judith for help.

"All right, on to the next step," she said cheerily. She removed the guard's helmet and held it up for our appraisal. "It should be easier to go in if you dress like a knight." Helmet was held out in Yuri's general direction.

"Who, me?" He didn't look like he enjoyed the idea much.

Helmet moved in Karol's general direction. "Karol would work just as well."

"Yuri's wearing it." They looked at me. "End of discussion. Yuri's wearing it."

"But-"

"_I_ went through with distracting the guard," I ran over his protests, "You're _not_ getting out of this."

"But-" I glared at him, and he finally sighed in defeat. "I guess I'll have to do it. But really, a knight of all things..." He and Karol quickly stripped the knight of his uniform. _Haha, it smells! Take that, Yuri!_ He and I both excused ourselves back to the inn to change quickly.

I was back out relatively quickly, considering I had to undo all the buckles on those boots (which I actually felt a little fond of) and wash off all the make up. And wrestle my hair into a loose pony tail at the base of my neck so the curls would stay out of my eyes. When I saw Yuri, who'd apparently finished changing just a little faster than me (he'd ignored some of the heavier pieces of armor, the cheater) I didn't hide my vindictive smirk. He very nobly tried to ignore me.

"Hey! Quit goofing off over there!" I glanced at the alley we'd left the stripped knight in, glad he wasn't noticeable when the other knight came running up to "knight" Yuri.

"Huh? What's the matter?" Yuri asked him naturally while the rest of us stiffened and tried not to look like we'd been doing anything questionable.

"You should get back to your post before things get even more out of hand!"

"What do you mean, 'out of hand?'"

"The mage we captured is running wild! Hurry up!" _Yay! Return of prickly cactus Rita!_

"Roger!" Yuri saluted (_A blizzard in Hell!_), "Okay, be right back." He ran off with the real knight before we (the others at least, I _knew_ already) realized he was going to play along.

Looking at each other in concern, we rushed to the knights' headquarters without even discussing what we'd do. Even before we reached the entrance we could hear explosions strong enough to rattle the heavy wooden door.

"What could be going on in there?" Estelle wondered, and there was a particularly loud bang that almost knocked the door off its hinges. A bit of smoke seeped through the cracks. We stared in horror, awe, and confusion.

"...Uh, it's gotten quiet now. Think we should go check?" I knew what was in there, but that didn't mean I wasn't concerned. What if we opened the door and got a face full of fireball?

"We should make sure Yuri isn't hurt..."

We all clamored through the door at once, just in time to hear Yuri grunt, "Settle down!"

"A-are you okay?" Estelle rushed into the room, panicked for the swordsman's safety when she took in the scene of smoke and knights strewn everywhere. I waved a hand in front of my face, trying to clear some of the smoke so I could see, or at least breathe, easier. Something that shouldn't have been burned had, and it made a smell worse than burnt rubber.

The air was clearing a bit, and I could see the disguised Yuri trying to restrain the ever hot-headed mage Rita. "Rita?" Estelle exclaimed in surprise.

"Estelle! What are you doing here...?" Rita had stopped trying to blast Yuri's foot off once she'd realized it was him, and now was looking at each of us one by one in disbelief.

"Let's go outside to talk," Judith suggested calmly. There was a rush to get out of the smoky room nearly as fast as the one to get in.

After we all took a moment to breathe deeply and appreciate the clean air, Estelle returned her attention to Rita's unexpected presence. "Have you calmed down?"

"Yeah..."

"So what are you doing in a place like this?"

And so started the important scene during which Rita gave us key information. People being forced to work, Hoplon blastia being smuggled in at night, what looked like preparations for another war. Blame was allocated to the most likely culprit, Cumore (Karol: "Ah, you mean the guy with the creepy voice." _So proud of you, my boy!_), and the need to deal with blastia properly was stressed by Rita. After that we decided we really, really should be getting on with our job to rescue Teagle.

So we went back to the unguarded lift, Karol nagging us to be very careful!

x x x

_**It's So Not You**_

_Estelle: You know, in knight's armor, you really do look like a knight, Yuri. You're quite handsome!_

_Letha: Yes, yes! Quite the striking figure!_

_Judith: You're getting a complement you know. It wouldn't hurt to smile._

_Yuri: I'm not really crazy about this getup. I've got bad memories of Flynn laughing his head off about how silly I looked in this..._

_Karol: Well...I think I get how Flynn felt... It's like...somebody dressed you up! Ah ha ha ha ha!_

_Estelle: No, not at all, Yuri! It's good because it's so different from who you are._

_Judith: Leave it to Yuri to be different even in a normal suit of armor._

_Letha: It wouldn't be so bad, but the colors really look terrible on him._

_Yuri: This is why I hate this uniform!_

_**Rita Appears**_

_Estelle: Heh heh heh._

_Rita: What's with you? First you're panicked, now you're laughing._

_Karol: You're pretty moody yourself, Rita._

_Yuri: You're not really one to talk, Karol._

_Rita: Just shut up!_

_Estelle: Heh heh. I'm so glad we found you here. I mean, I gave up going back to the capital, so even if you had visited me, I wouldn't have been there!_

_Yuri: Oh, how sweet, Rita. You were gonna go visit Estelle._

_Rita: I...I wouldn't go to the capital just to visit someone. I mean, I have to report my findings on the aer krene. I just thought I'd say hi or something..._

_Judith: I don't know. That sounds like an excuse for a visit with Estelle to me._

_Rita: Y-you stay out of this!_

_Letha: Oh, looks like you hit the bulls-eye, Judith! Rita's in denial~!_

_Yuri: Aw come on. We're all together again. Let's just be happy about that._

x x x

"Hide!" Rita hissed and pulled Estelle behind the barrier blastia. The rest of us ducked behind it as well, and scrambled to see past towards the direction of the lift again. Judith won again, and I let myself end up in the back since I already knew quite well who we were spying on. _Come to think of it, I might not want to let Yeager see me...his guild _was_ hired to kidnap me after all_.

Because of course the pair of men we saw meeting in front of the lift were the ever disturbing Captain Cumore and totally awesome in his own way Yeager.

"Ah, milord. Are you sure you shouldn't be going to the Sands of Kogorh, now, Sir?" the boss of Leviathan's Claw drawled in his close-enough-to-German accent.

"Humph. I don't have to pay attention to Alexei's orders," Cumore sniffed disdainfully. "Using the money and weapons I have, everything will soon be withing my reach."

"And I hope you'll remember to appreciate the work Leviathan's Claw has done for you." Yeager lowered his head slightly, appearing very humble, though it was purely an act for a paying client.

"Yes, you will be taken care of, Yeager." _Ugh, listening to Cumore makes me want to shudder and take another shower to wash the slime off_.

"You'll take those weapons I sold you, and attack the Union—BOOM!" This is one reason why Yeager was awesome. Nominally our enemy, that one line from him grabbed our attention and started a discussion of Cumore's plans. And Yeager totally knew we were listening.

"Heh. I'm afraid I have my sights set on loftier things than the Union." Even though I couldn't see the others' expressions, I looked around to see if they reacted. I noted Estelle was shaking a little, and Yuri's grip on his sheathed sword was tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. Rita growled a bit under her breath.

"Ignoring the Don is a big no-no. He is a wonderful guy, ja? Don't go forgetting that."

"My my. It almost sounds as if you respect the man."

"Respect him I do, but Leviathan's Claw always gets the job done." Karol groaned slightly and dropped his head in his hands.

"Oh ho ho... Such dedication. That's just what I like about you. Don't worry though. You are looking at the future Commandant of the Imperial Knights."

"Pfft, in your dreams," I snorted.

"That fool Alexei, telling me to watch the Union while he signs friendship treaties with them."

"Yeah!" said very much like _ja_. "You tell 'im!" Yeager glanced towards the blastia, where we were hiding. I ducked down a little, just to be safe. The lift started to lower and take them down to the laborer's camp.

"If it were me, I'd crush them in the blink of an eye with your lovely weapons! The Union can't possible hope to stop me." Cumore's voice quickly became fainter, even as we hurried over to catch his last words. But all we could hear after that was Yeager's voice laughing.

"Well that was convenient and informative," I quipped. It's one thing when that happens in a video game, but in real life you have to wonder at the odds.

Rita was concerned about that exchange for another reason. "Hey, that guy with the weird hair looked over at us and laughed."

Yuri nodded slightly. "He definitely spotted us all right."

"So he thinks we're funny, does he...?" she scowled and crossed her arms.

The swordsman grimaced with frustration, "Man, it's always the same thing with these idiots." Pinched the bridge of his nose as if a headache was forming, then returned to business. "So now we know there's a bunch of people being kept down there."

Collective nod and a "Yeah" from Rita.

"All right. Let's go free them from the idiots."

_Poor Yuri, this is like that line from The Incredibles. He must feel like the maid who always have to clean up after others, saving the world when he just finished saving it~!_

x x x

God, writing that was weeeird.

Letha was first place, Yuri was second (behind by three votes once you count Angelic's), Estelle in third, and Karol was fourth with Judith as a close fifth. Hence the result of Yuri coming dangerously close to putting on the dress until he turned it back on Letha.

Sorry, Angelic! Letha didn't pull of getting Yuri into drag.

Letha: I _will_ keep trying! I _will_ have vengeance!

Sylph: Uhh, okay...*edges away* Good luck with that.

It took a full page to describe Letha's seduction costume. I considered trying to pare it down a bit, but since the game had such...interesting costumes I wanted to do that justice. Letha reacted a bit more strongly than she might have, mostly because 1) she really wanted to get Yuri to do it and 2) my God, they made her wear a mini skirt. In another situation, she might have agreed reluctantly but laughed about it until she went up to the knight and realized "Ho snap, what do I actually do?"


	28. Chapter 28: Familiar Faces

Umm, do I have anything to say up here? No...I think the important notes all come at the end this time.

So, I'll just say, welcome to new reviewers! Unfamiliar names leaving reviews in my inbox always make my brain short circuit, then gives me the urge to write more!

Glad everyone enjoyed the seduction scene! And ever so sorry to Angelic for Yuri not doing it. I would have liked to see it too, but we can keep our fingers crossed! Letha is turning over all the suggested methods of revenge she's been receiving, plotting vengeance in the darkest, most evil depths of her mind! Though the whole dish best served cold philosophy will have to suffice, they're a little busy saving people and all that.

x x x

Chapter 28: Familiar Faces

x x x

We had to wait for the lift to return, during which we all snickered some more at Yuri in his knight uniform. For some reason, the game designers have him (or Karol, if that's who you picked) back in default costume once Rita joins the group. But that would defeat the purpose of having him dress up to give us an easier time sneaking into the laborer's camp, and he hadn't had an opportunity to change back yet anyway.

_Ha ha_.

Once we could see the area near the bottom of the lift was clear we pulled the lever to raise it back to our level and quickly went down while no one was around to see. Every worker around was filthy and had dull, tired eyes. Few payed our arrival any attention, soon losing interest and returning to their own work.

Even with the laborers indifferent to our presence, we still had to be wary of the knights roaming around. Following Repede's nose, we moved across the camp in short dashes using the tents, scaffolding beams, and stacked crates, bags, and barrels for cover. Yuri may have gotten stuck pretending to be a knight, but the general consensus was:

"If the knights before weren't panicking over Rita, they'd probably think you were pretty suspicious." (That was Karol.)

"That's right, even with the uniform, it's hard to believe you were a knight." (That was Rita, after giving Karol a quick punch for bringing up her recklessness.)

"So why the hell am I even wearing this?" (Of course, that was Yuri.)

None of the workers we passed was Teagle. I prayed silently that this was because he'd be with Cumore and Yeager like the game, not because he'd been one of the victims of the work related accidents. At one point we had passed a wreckage of splintered wood and stone. It hadn't escaped our notice that the ground was stained the familiar dark brown of old blood. I couldn't guess what had happened, but it had been enough to seriously injure at least one person. Repede only sniffed at it in passing, moving on with no further interest.

Finally we looked around the corner of another tent and pulled up short. "Hmm? Look who's here," Judith pointed out in a stage whisper. Yeager wasn't far from our position, and a row of his Red-eyes stood at attention before him. Most looked identical, but I noted one had a new scar across his right cheek and the bridge of his nose. _Uh ohh..._

"Oh dear, familiar face..." I groaned.

"Familiar?" Estelle questioned.

"The guy with the scar, he was one of the guys that kidnapped me. He's gonna want to give me one to match..." From the short time I'd known "Birdman," I knew well enough that he was likely to give me the same scar, and then more just to vent his grudge. I wondered if any of the other Red-eyes were from that group...

"Looks like Cumore's become their new client,"Yuri concluded. "But they might try to catch you again anyway."

"Ugh...I'm gonna stick _real _close to you guys, just in case." The Red-eyes nodded at whatever Yeager had told them, and split off to fulfill their orders.

"Hey," Karol looked around at the rest of us, "do you think that guy who talks all funny could be the Red-eyes' boss?"

"It sure looks that way from here." Even as he offered his agreement, Yuri waved us forward so we followed Yeager as he moved behind another tent. Cautiously poking our heads around this new corner, we saw the pseudo-German quietly conferring with Cumore. Their little meeting was interrupted by a passing worker stumbling, raising a small cloud of dust when he fell heavily to his knees.

Cumore grimaced in distaste at the commoner that had fallen at his feet. "Get to work! No slacking off, you worms!"

The poor worker lying prone on the ground tried to push himself up, but his arms gave out and he collapsed weakly. "Urgh, ugh..."

"Look, that's... It's Teagle." Karol bounced a little in place, but the sight of the knights and Red-eyes around kept him from jumping out and drawing attention to our fledgling guild.

"If it's money you want, you'll have more than you can use. Now work! Work!"

"Tch, of all the narrow minded-if more money than you need is all it takes for a person to work himself to death, Cumore would be in a grave himself already," I gritted through clenched teeth. "A single piece of gald is already more money than he deserves to have."

"Wait!" Yuri ignored Karol's plea and stepped out from our hiding place, bending down briefly to scoop up a handful of stones. He'd hardly stood up again before one flew through the air to smack Cumore in the head. _Ten points!_

The powder blue haired man's hand flew to his wound. "Wh-who?" He spun wildly to glare at Yuri, who tossed and caught another stone in his hand tauntingly. "Yuri Lowell! What are you doing here?" The disgust on his face quickly morphed into extreme shock when Estelle also stepped out of hiding. "P-Princess...?"

I pulled back behind the tent and cowered where Yeager wouldn't be able to see me. _Dammit... He probably already knows I'm here, but I really don't want him to see me anyway._

"You have no right to call yourself a knight!" the pink haired noble admonished him. "Brute force is not the way to honor the prestige of the empire." I could imagine the accusing way she would be pointing at the corrupt captain and his knights. "Put down your weapons now. You will also release the people you have tricked into coming down here!"

"This all might be easier if such a naïve little princess were to simply disappear," Cumore's voice sneered back at her. "All of your utopian ramblings make me sick!"

"His _face _makes me sick," I grumbled. "And his snotty rambling makes me gag." Rita and Karol snickered a bit, apparently in full agreement despite their unease over the situation.

"That's not the kind of thing someone with delusions of becoming Commandant of the Knights would say." _Right, like Yuri said. Cumore's words are a rat's whisker short of blatant treason. Only thing worse he could say is "I, Cumore of the stuck up brigade, shall kill the imperial princess and incite war in order to usurp a higher position"_.

Teagle must have managed to pull himself together, since his was the next voice I heard. "It's you...!"

"You'll be alright now," Estelle assured him.

"Yeager! Get rid of them!"

"Ja, milord." Strange noise, probably him preparing his weapon. "Nothing personal, you see. Just business!" _Oh, snap, we fight him here? Ugh, I'm gonna have to try and write down the key events later, or I'll keep getting surprised by boss fights I forgot about_.

Though I _did_ remember Yeager had this pretty awesome scythe for a weapon. I vaguely remembered noticing him shoot with a crossbow when I tried to skim and skip over the actual fights. I _definitely_ knew that for his Caress of Death he used his scythe as a gun and shot people point blank.

_...Crap, I'd rather fight Birdman instead!_ So what if I got a dozen scars from the vindictive bastard, I did _not_ want a BULLET to the FACE.

Seeing that everyone else had already drawn their weapons and were already fending off the first wave of Red-eyes attackers, I pulled my daggers from their sheathes and took a deep breathe to steady myself. I leaped out into the fight and for the time being focused on covering Rita.

Normally, Rita would spend most of a fight near the sidelines or back of the group, attacking directly with her scrolls only when pissed off enough that she wanted a more hands on approach. But the sounds of battle carried through the camp and before long more Red-eyes appeared seemingly out of no where. The result was that we were surrounded and slightly outnumbered (there were, I don't know...maybe a dozen or so total), so Rita was having difficulty finding the time to cast her spells effectively.

I repeatedly used Double Star Stroke to try and keep the three advancing on us from getting too close. If at all possible, I didn't want to fight hand to hand with all of them at once, ideally I'd take them down one by one. _Oh Lordie, I have to kill people again..._ Swallowing, I internally strangled that hesitant thought while hardening my resolve.

"Splash!" Rita's spell hit two of them head on, the sudden deluge of water knocking one off his feet and staggering the other. Grabbing the opportunity I rushed the remaining one. _Take him out before the others finish recovering_.

Stepping forward, I thrust both daggers towards his face. He raised both hands to block it with his wavy red knives (...come to think of it, hadn't I heard of something like that called a Kris? Not the time...). Just as the weapons collided with a metallic screech, I centered all my weight on my forward leg and swung the back leg up to kick his exposed side as hard as I could. Not the _best_ kick (I have little practice kicking higher than shin level), but he doubled over slightly while grunting in pain.

My daggers inched a little closer to his face as the force behind his blocking weapons lessened a bit. I redirected the force I was putting behind my own blades to a point off to the side of his head, and unprepared for the change he couldn't stop his own weapons from being moved along with them. Quickly I withdrew one dagger from the tangle and slashed it across his neck, jumping back to return to Rita's defense before his body even hit the ground.

The mage had also used the opening wisely, I saw, since one of the soaked Red-eyes was pinned to the ground with stone spears through an arm and a leg. Even as I watched she threw a barrage of fireballs at the other one, who unfortunately wasn't hurt as badly as he should have been thanks to his wet clothes. They steamed and smoldered in a few places as he quickly dropped to roll in the dirt.

If I knew how to whistle, I'd have done so in admiration. I settled with quoting, "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." Several more humorous versions I've heard of that line, but I first read it in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ in relation to why someone should not risk getting Gandalf mad. "But there's nothing subtle about Rita's temper."

"Shut up and help already!" Rita snapped while throwing more fireballs at a pair of Red-eyes Estelle was trying to fight. So that meant she expected me to deal with the one attacking us while she gave the others magical support. I could deal with that.

After he'd assured himself that none of the flames had taken, the Red-eyes pushed off from the ground with a snarl. He didn't even glance my way as he charged Rita so I easily intercepted him, putting all my own momentum and weight into ramming him with my shoulder. Not seeing me coming until I was right next to him, he was totally unprepared and sent tumbling the other way.

Stumbling forward a few steps I tried to recover my balance before I fell over as well. I reflexively straightened just in time to take a crossbow quarrel in the left shoulder. Like a heavy punch just under the collarbone, the force spun me and knocked me off my feet. I fell with a pained shriek, and another cry was ripped out of my throat when I landed and felt the quarrel scraping against bone. Rita cried out soon after, and I panicked at the thought that she'd been hit.

"Nnngh!" I tried to push myself up on my right hand, blinking tears out of my eyes in order to look back at the mage. She had a hand clamped over her arm, blood seeping out from between her fingers, but it seemed she'd only been grazed. She was already chewing on what must have been a gel and Repede was guarding her, so she was safe for the moment. I glared over towards where Yeager was smirking, crossbow in hand. He gave it to a Red-eyes standing nearby, while another handed him his giant scythe just in time to fend off Judith's Luna Gale attack. Made sense if his lackeys carried them, he hadn't looked armed when we saw him before.

There were other crossbow quarrels lying around or sticking out of the ground, some even lying in pieces. I'd been the only one unlucky enough to be hit directly, though rips in Estelle's skirt and Judith's half skirt(-sash-cape...thingy) indicated some close shaves.

Hissing at the pain from the slightest movement, I grabbed the daggers I'd dropped with my good hand to put first one and then the other back in their sheathes for the moment. Then, gritting my teeth and trying to brace myself, I grabbed the quarrel and pulled it back out. "Ungh!" Dropping the bloody shaft immediately I grabbed a gel from my bag and ate it quickly. The combined taste of apples and blood made me gag a bit, some must have gotten on the gel from my hand when I grabbed it.

The hole in my shoulder stopped bleeding and scabbed over, but it hadn't formed new skin and ached. I started fishing around in my bag for another gel to make sure it was healed properly. Someone's foot came swinging from my peripheral and smashed into my wounded shoulder. My vision seemed to flash white from the pain, and I probably screamed again.

When my sight cleared I was lying on my back taking shuddering breaths, and could feel a sluggish warmth spreading across my shoulder. _Dammit, it opened again_.

"What's the matter little bird, did you forget me already?" _Well no question which bastard I have to bitch slap for _that_!_ I glared up at Birdman, pressing my hand against the opened wound. "I was hoping for the chance to thank you for last time, but I never thought it would come so soon!" His foot lashed out again and kicked me hard in the stomach.

"Ugh!" I curled over on the ground as he laughed harshly.

"Punishing Smash!" _Karol?_ The Ace's shout was followed by a meaty smack and pained curses from Birdman. Looking up again I saw Karol and the bastard squaring off, Birdman's left arm hanging limply by his side. Probably not broken, it didn't sound like anything had snapped, but it looked pretty useless for the moment.

_Since I'm already down here_... I pulled my legs in closer and then struck out with them, catching Birdman's ankles with my feet and jerking them out from under him. He toppled over just as he'd been about to strike at Karol, so the boy was left holding his ax in a guard position he no longer needed. Seeing the Red-eyes fall, he hesitated for a moment before grabbing his bag off his shoulder and swinging it around so it came down hard on the Red-eyes. When the assassin didn't get up again (just unconscious, or else I'm gonna need to check what that boy keeps _in_ that bag!), he rushed over to my side as I rolled over onto my knees.

"Hang on, I have some gels!" He reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of bright red gels. I stuffed two into my mouth and chewed, ignoring the coppery taste of my own blood this time.

I reached out with my good arm to rumple his hair again. "Thanks for the save, boss."

He blushed a little at the praise, but if he had anything to say he missed his chance when Yeager himself leaped at us with his scythe. Karol yelped as we jumped apart from each other, Yeager landing between us with the scythe blade biting into the ground. I quickly pulled my dao out, keeping it in my right hand and leaving my left hand free to strain the shoulder less.

"Afterimage!" I slashed it through the air, the green aer trail a bit wavery from using only one hand, but it clipped Yeager as he dodged the dao. Rather, it cut the very tip off of that lock of hair that hangs in front of his face.

"Very amusing," _uh oh_, "My turn next!" He twirled the scythe in his hand and advanced towards me again. _No! He's a boss fight!_

"Eeep!" I squeaked and ran the other way. _Then_ remembered that scythe was a gun hybrid thing.

"Pierce Bullet!" I threw myself to the side, and saw a blue streak pass by where I'd just been.

"Azure Wolf Strike!" _Yay! Distraction!_ While Yuri and Judith slashed and stabbed away at Yeager, with the occasional input of Rita's fireballs and other handy spells, I retreated to the little grouping of Karol and Repede protecting Rita and Estelle. There were only a few Red-eyes left in fighting condition, but our group was also looking rather battered.

"Any game plan?"

"First Aid!" Estelle sent her healing arts in Yuri's direction.

"Keep beating them up!" Rita threw a Stone Blast at a Red-eyes that tried to sneak around to our other side. There were only four of the assassins left standing, and they were all injured in some way or another. I saw Birdman starting to move again where we'd left him, so I aimed a Star Stroke at him.

"Sir Cumore! It's the Flynn Brigade!" _Ohh yeah, I kinda forgot Cumore was still here since he's not, you know, doing anything._ Not that I should complain, if Cumore had ordered the knights to fight too, we'd be overwhelmed by sheer numbers alone.

Cumore scowled and dismissively waved a hand at the knight. "Well, send him away!" He was more immediately concerned with the fact that Yeager was being double teamed and fast losing the advantage. Though personally I suspected that Yeager was going easy on us.

"We tried, but he insists on coming down to perform an inspection."

"That lower quarter lout. He simply has no tact!"

"Well Flynn's certainly having an easier time getting in here than he did with Ragou's mansion," I couldn't help pointing out. A Red-eyes was hovering just outside my reach, presumably trying to decide who's injuries would be a greater drawback in a fight. I feinted at him with my dao, and just grinned when he jumped back a bit.

"Gauche, Droite." At Yeager's command the twins dropped out of their hiding places up in the scaffolding, _Seriously? They were seriously up there?_ and took guard positions before him. Yuri and Judith were forced to stop abruptly at the sudden appearance before they practically tripped over the girls.

"This is our time to shine!" chirped the green-blond girl to his right, who was (if I remembered right) named Droite. Making the one on the left Gauche. _Seriously, please tell me those aren't their real names...maybe they're fake names for work!_

"I think we better be making with the escape, ja?" The girls looked a little crestfallen to realize they wouldn't get to show off in combat, but threw a smoke screen without missing a beat.

"Aah! What is this?"

"'This' is everyone believing they're a bloody ninja," I grumbled, trying to filter the air through my shirt sleeve and squinting. "Thank Go-goodness no one's running in around in bright orange yelling 'believe it!'" Through the haze I could only see vague outlines of people moving.

Droite and Gauche were ushering someone away (could be Yeager, could be Cumore...could be Billy Bob, everyone's favorite assassin). Cumore, of course, needed the last word and shouted at us through the smoke, "We'll get you next time!"

"Next time, Gadget! Next time!" I muttered. Oh my, sometimes I get so nostalgic for the old cartoons.

"What an original line," commented Judith, sounding perfectly composed despite the battle and smoke that was making Karol, Rita, and me cough (I really should have been keeping my mouth shut instead of making sarcastic remarks). The smoke was finally clearing enough to see that Cumore, Yeager, the girls, and the assassins were all gone.

"Efficient, they even managed to carry the dead and injured away..." They must have cheated somehow.

"If we don't follow them, they'll-!"

"Wait! Our job is to rescue Teagle!" Karol cut into Estelle's instinctive zeroing in on potential trouble for others.

"But..."

"I don't know who's job is what," said Rita, "but are we following them or not?"

"Everyone freeze! That's enough!" There was Flynn, heading his own troop of knights, several of which immediately broke away from formation to head off knights from Cumore's brigade before they could run for it.

Yuri snapped his fingers, "Hey, just in time."

"Yuri...?"

"We just show up everywhere, don't we?" I smiled brightly at the blond knight. He shook his head in disbelief.

Estelle was helping Teagle back onto his feet. From a closer vantage, I could see his arms were covered in heavy bruises, and the back of his shirt was torn and bloody in a way that reminded me of... _Oh, Lord, did they whip him?_ Well, that helped explain how he could be so completely worn out after three days missing. Exhaustion and malnutrition would be bad enough, but they wouldn't cause such a drastic effect in such a short time. But Teagle already looked gaunt, with haunted eyes.

Heat seemed to rise to my head, and I suddenly _really_ hoped we could catch up to Cumore sometime very soon. Preferably where there was a large cliff to push him off. _Quicksand works too, but I suddenly don't want to wait that long._ For the first time it occurred to me, couldn't I have done something to prevent this from happening to Teagle? What if I'd said something back in Nor Harbor? Or tried to direct the others down to the camp earlier? _But, what if I ruined the plot? Progression of events?_

Fortunately for my peace of mind, Estelle had already set to healing him the best she could despite the urgent need to get out and chase those bad men down. I shook the hypothetical "what ifs" from my head as Yuri made sure Teagle was fit to return to his wife and child by himself. Of course even if he couldn't, Flynn would probably see to his safety.

"So we are going after them," Judith inferred from the exchange.

"Yeah. I"m sure Flynn has things under control here." And with how fast things were going, decision making had fallen back in Yuri's hands. "Sound good, Karol?" Mostly.

"Yeah. Plus, I think Estelle's going to take off after them any minute." The princess had indeed been edging nervously in the direction Yeager and company had mostly likely run in, her manner reminiscent of a dog wanting to be let out for a walk.

"Sorry," _Egad, she's giving us puppy eyes!_

Rita gave us a more direct kick start, "Jeez! We're going after them, right? So let's get going!" She and Estelle led the charge out of camp. _MORE RUNNING OUT OF TOWN!_

I was about to sprint after them, ignoring Flynn's call (he was calling Yuri's name, not mine, so no biggie), but spun on my heel and ran up to Teagle. He looked quite startled by my abrupt change of direction and the stern look in my eyes. "Here," I fished some apple gels out of my bag and held them out to him.

"But, I can't-"

"Give hand!" I commanded in a pet owner's voice. Perhaps because of the past three days of following orders (or else), he held his palm up without even thinking about it. I dropped the gels into his hand, "Take!" and finally ran off after the others.

x x x

_**Yeager's Speech**_

_Estelle: That man called Yeager certainly had a unique way of talking._

_Rita: Unique isn't the word I'd use._

_Karol: I had a hard time understanding some of the stuff he said._

_Judith: An ancient way of speaking, lost in this day and age..._

_Estelle: What? Are you serious?_

_Judith: ...It would at least make a good story if that were true._

_Rita: *sigh*_

_**Ancient Languages**_

_Yuri: That Yeager was quite a character._

_Letha: Oh ja, Herr Yeager ist ein Mann sehr interressant, n'est pas?_

_Karol: What? Letha, you know how to talk like that too?_

_Estelle: Oh, I know! You learned from your Aunt's books, right? So it really is an ancient way of speaking, like Judith said!_

_Rita: What did you just say, anyway?_

_Letha: Uhh, I don't really know._

_All: …_

_**What Flynn Thinks**_

_Karol: Flynn was asking for Estelle to come back with him, right?_

_Yuri: The Knights can't help thinking that the best place for a princess is a castle. He's just worried that he won't be able to keep track of her._

_Judith: But Estelle decided to set out on this journey on her own, and you want to respect that._

_Yuri: I haven't really thought about it all that much._

_Letha: Liar liar~._

_Rita: The Knights are bound to keep following you though, as long as Estelle's with you._

_Yuri: And what kind of guild would we be if we didn't get into trouble with the Knights?_

_Karol: I don't think fighting the Knights is actually a guild requirement..._

_Letha: It isn't? Could have fooled me._

x x x

Repede was quickly given point of our little hunting party, tracking Cumore's cologne outside the barrier and even through the wilderness. Yep, Cumore's cologne. I won't call it perfume, because I wanted to believe there was _something_ normal about the creeper.

Maybe Cumore's knights and the Red-eyes had something to do with it, but there weren't many monsters in the area. We were only attacked by some tadpole thingies, that looked similar to the monsters in the Shaikos Ruins. Yet again, they died in a gelatinous mess, though at least I managed to keep myself clean thanks to Star Stroke. I'd gotten nearly as good at that move as Estelle. Well, it _was_ my only ranged attack...

After that brief scrap I felt abnormally winded. At first I just attributed my difficulty breathing to still being worn out from the fight with Yeager and the lingering effects of my nastier injuries. Even after taking another apple gel my shoulder felt like a massive bruise, and I had to wear my satchel bag so it hung on my other side.

When I still wasn't feeling any better much later, was getting worse even, I eventually figured out that it was probably another bout of aer sickness. I didn't say anything though, there wasn't anything anyone could do for me and it wasn't yet so bad that I couldn't keep walking.

While everyone else was keeping an eye out for any sign of our targets, I was looking out for someone else. Yes, I remembered quite well that the Great Raven would soon be putting in another appearance, and would be sticking with us for good! Yay! Looking forward to him completing the group helped me keep my mind off the aches in my shoulder and chest.

Other than that, I had no idea where we were. Hoorah for a crap sense of direction.

It was getting pretty late in the day, and Repede had nearly lost the trail several times over the last two hours. But it seemed the last time was for good.

"...There's no sign of them..." Rita huffed. "Looks like they ended up getting away." Amazing with such a strong scent trail, maybe the twins had used some other type of ninja odor bomb to confuse the trail.

"Where are we anyway?"

"Karol, that question does not reassure me," I groaned. "I'm hoping one of you has a clue..."

Judith did. "A forest in central Tolbyccia. If I'm right, Torim Harbor is east of here."

Yuri considered this revelation for a moment. "We should probably spend the night here, and then just get to the harbor instead of returning to Heliord."

"Whee, break time!" I dropped heavily to sit on the side of the path we'd been following. "Dang it, lately I've been running more miles in a day than I have overall in my life." Pulled my boots off to massage my feet. _I need new socks...the few pairs I have are all getting holes in the heels._ Fortunately the aer sickness was starting to pass.

Estelle stared from me to him in disbelief. "But what do we do about Cumore? Do we just let him go?"

"I thought the purpose of your journey was to find Phaeroh," Judith succinctly reminded her.

"Well I..."

"I wasn't aware Brave Vesperia was formed to follow your random whims."

Estelle bowed her head and flushed slightly, "...I-I'm sorry. That was never my intention..."

Yuri apparently didn't like the now tense atmosphere, "Aww, she's just telling you to relax. Besides, Flynn's on the scene, right? You can be sure he'll take care of things."

"Hey, 'Phaeroh'? 'Brave Vesperia'?" Rita realized she had apparently missed some important things in the few days we'd been apart. "Start explaining." Repede yawned and sat down since it was clear he wouldn't have to keep trying to follow an invisible trail anymore.

I elected to help Karol set up some tents while the others brought Rita up to speed. We needed a total of three, two girls to a tent while Yuri, Karol, and Repede shared the third. As long as I didn't have to share with Rita I didn't even mind which other girl I shared with, so long as I didn't have to beware sleep casting in the middle of the night.

Not really interested in dinner, I wrapped myself up in a bedroll and went to sleep early, hoping the rest would prevent a sickness relapse.

x x x

"Hey, Letha..."

"Mmrph..."

"Letha?"

"Wha...?" I blinked sleepily and rubbed at my eyes.

"I'm sorry, I woke you up..." It was Estelle, apparently she was my, uh, tentmate for the night.

"'S'okay...somethin' wrong?" I yawned a bit. "We taking turns watchin' or something?"

"Oh, no, I just had something I wanted to ask you. I didn't realize you were already asleep..."

"Ohh, that's good," I burrowed a little deeper into my bedroll. "Ask me quick before I fall asleep again."

"Alright." Despite that she hesitated first, and when she finally asked it jolted me a bit. I must have nearly dropped off to sleep again. "What Judith said before, about my journey being to find Phaeroh, and that Brave Vesperia wasn't for following my whims..." She paused again.

"What about it?" I prompted, though I had a hunch where this was going.

"Do you-Do you agree with her? Do you think I've been selfish?" Bingo, I won the thousand gald prize. _Woah, thinking in terms of gald instead of dollars...I've been here awhile, haven't I?_

"To agree with her I'd have to understand what she was thinking when she said that." I lifted myself up on one elbow to look Estelle in the eyes. Or rather, in the general area where her eyes should be, it was too dark to actually see them clearly. "Honestly, I don't think she meant you were being selfish, as much as I think she was trying to get you to think about your decisions more before you make them.

"If it were _me_ who said that to you earlier, and I can't say I wouldn't have said something similar," she flinched a bit but I continued as if I hadn't noticed, "I would have _meant_ that if you keep chasing after whatever latest noble cause you stumble across, you won't get even one of them done. Keep going like this and you'll keep dropping them halfway through to chase a new bad guy. Instead, keep your goal in sight, and don't allow yourself to get side tracked."

"But-!"

"But you can't just ignore someone who needs help, I know," I dropped back down to the ground and pulled my pillow (actually my green coat rolled up) closer. "Just saying you need to learn to identify situations where you and only you can help, from the ones where you could help but so could someone else." Yawned again, and finished with, "See...with Teagle...Flynn is there. An' he's not gonna let Cumore get away with hurting those people. It's different from somethin' like Halure, where the flowers actually needed you in order to bloom again..."

"Okay...I think I understand," I hummed to acknowledge that I'd heard, but couldn't muster up any actual words. "Good night, Letha."

"G'night..."

I fell into dreams, most of which I couldn't remember. The only things that stuck with me when I woke in the early hours of the dawn was a blood red sunset, Teagle's body lying broken on a pile of corpses, and the unshakable conviction that I hadn't tried my hardest to save them all.

x x x

Another day of walking was near torturous with all the sore muscles in my shoulder and stomach. My feet and legs felt shaky too, not quite recovered from trying to chase down Cumore and co. the day before. I was in a sour mood for most of the morning, the others becoming reluctant to walk anywhere near me when they realized I wasn't even trying to tease or joke with anyone. I just gave a flat stare and short responses if somebody tried to start a conversation with me.

It was roughly noon when Raven practically materialized out of nowhere (what the hell?), making an exaggerated show of trying to catch his breath. "You kids really cover a lot of ground in a day, this old man barely managed ta catch up to ya."

"Huh? Wh-what the?" Rita sounded even more surprised than I felt, and I was pretty shocked despite having expected him since the day before. Yuri and Judith didn't seemed fazed at all, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd noted the old perv approaching and just hadn't warned us.

"What's wrong, miss genius mage?" He stroked his scruffy chin self importantly. "Forget me already? It's me, Raven the Great."

Hands on hips, she glared at him venomously. "Who the hell do you..."

"I told ya," hand to his forehead either in an attempt to look cool or because he had a headache, "Raven the Great..." Yeah, trying to be cool. "Man. Yer a scary little kid, ya know that?"

"So? What are you up to?"

_Stalking fanboy tendencies?_

"With all the stuff you've been doin', poor Raven got sent all the way out here to keep an eye on ya."

_Yep, stalking tendencies. Fanboy variety optional._

Karol looked puzzled at the explanation. "Why would they do that?"

"First things first, let's go find an inn at Torim Harbor. I'll tell ya everything there. Raven's pretty hungry ya see..."

"How much farther til we reach the harbor?" I asked, hoping we weren't far.

"Shouldn't be more than an hour or two." I heaved a sigh of relief when Raven told us that. Resting at an inn sounded pretty good.

Yuri shrugged, probably realizing it wouldn't do any good to push the older man. "I suppose there's no point in hanging around here. Torim Harbor's a good first step."

"Torim Harbor, then," Judith agreed, then gave Estelle a questioning look. "Would that be alright?"

"Yes, of course," the princess nodded. Then she hung her head contritely. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be selfish."

"Okay, let's go." At Yuri's cue we started walking again.

"Hey, Letha," Karol dared, either noticing that I wasn't glowering at my feet as fiercely as before or was just bored enough to try drawing me out anyway. "Could you tell us more about that story about the dwarves and the wizard?"

"Dwarves?" Raven looked at us at the same time Rita asked, "What wizard?"

"Ahh, these guys didn't hear the beginning..." I thought for a moment before looking at Karol and Estelle (who fell back in our grouping to hear better). "Do either of you want to tell them how it starts? Or should I start over?"

"I'll tell them!" Karol hurried to say. "It's about a hobbit, which is a guy who's shorter than me," (pfft, yeah, that's how I described Bilbo), "and these thirteen dwarves and an old guy who talked in riddles and was supposed to be a mage, but he's called a wizard because he doesn't use blastia, and they all wanted the hobbit to go with them to fight a dragon, though he wasn't actually going to fight it but only try and steal-"

I sighed and smiled a bit as Karol continued his rapid fire summary of the first few chapters. He must've really wanted to get it out of the way so I'd pick up again from where I'd left off. It didn't look like Raven or Rita understood even half of what he was saying though, and before long Estelle cut him off to explain the whole thing a bit more clearly. Then a large chunk of time was spent convincing Rita that it was a story, so it was okay if the wizard didn't need any formulas or blastia to cast magic.

"I've never hearda this story before, didja make it up?" Raven asked me.

"Nope, grew up reading that one over and over." Because when I kept trying to watch the tape we had of the animated film, my brother got sick of hearing it again and again so he dug up our paperback copy. "It was a very old book. Written for children, actually."

"Read a lotta books like that?"

"Yeah, I have..."

"Anythin' besides kid's stories? Philosophy, history, or maybe..." his voice turned low and sensual, "somethin' erotic?" His eyebrows waggled suggestively.

My mind seriously blanked for a moment. I'd figured Raven had started fishing for information to dig up some dirt Alexei wanted, but dirty books?

"Hmm, don't really care for philosophy much, it's a little too heavy for casual reading. Sometimes I read a bit of history, but I'm terrible at remembering important dates and such." In the same casual tone I continued with, "And yes, actually, I was able to get my hands on some more adult fiction."

"Oh really?" Raven seemed surprised. Well, what respectable young lady would so easily admit to that? "Any good ones?"

"Probably not any you'd be interested in," I said slowly, as if considering it. "They didn't have any female characters." I smiled innocently at him as the meaning sank in, and he gaped at me when I quickened my pace a bit to catch up to Karol, Rita, and Estelle again, who were just about ready for me to start telling them about Bilbo's first visit to Rivendell.

x x x

I took liberties, and tweaked a few things. It went smoother this way.

I did my best with the fight with Yeager. There are a few rough patches I'm not completely satisfied with in the scene as a whole, but overall I thought it works. The Fool Arcana tells me that there aren't actually bullets in Vesperia, so we agreed the gun-scythe fires something more like miniature Azure Edges. Once Letha gets over her ingrained fear of guns and thinks about it, she'll probably figure out the bullets are made of aer.

Umm, also there are the skits. Letha has some rudimentary German and French vocabulary from mandatory high school language classes. In the second skit, she combined both for something that should roughly mean "Oh yes, Mister Yeager is a really interesting man, isn't he?" My apologies to anyone who speaks either of these languages for a mangling them together like this.

...Speechless Raven? He'll probably turn that one back on her later, but it was worth it.


	29. Chapter 29: More a Thinker Than a Diver

Looong author's note this time.

Technical stuff I fumbled and was brought to my attention by The Fool Arcana, there's more to Star Stroke than I thought, apparently it involves creating a spark when you drag it across the ground initially, so it wouldn't work with the daggers. Whoops. So, sooner or later I'll go back and change the "Double Star Stroke" to something that makes more sense, and I'll start randomly calling that move something else with a different explanation. Just so you know what that's all about...

Anything else important...ah, someone was a little confused why Letha had an attack of aer sickness. Here's my simple explanation: aer is kinda accumulating in her system (or constantly wearing at her, you could say) because her body's not used to it. She's developed higher tolerance than when she first arrived, so the attacks become less frequent. But cases like being near an aer krene, or using more artes than usual, or something that severely weakens her (like having to recover from nasty wounds) will result in aer sickness. How bad that'll be depends on the circumstances.

There are more omakes up~! Anyone who hasn't noticed the updates, mosey on over and look for Rita's Little Accident, Good Deed, and Talk With a Sleep Walker. That nearly covers all the requests I got over the holiday season. Umm, there is one more, but it'll take a little while.

Also another poll in my profile, this one was just made on a whim for some giggles. *sweat* Made a few changes to it after finishing this chapter.

So, I've noticed another bandwagon trundling along through town to join the SI fanfiction one I jumped on. I'm talking about the latest trend of SI OCs getting their own formsprings. Are you guys interested in that? Given, I'm not saying I'll actually make one for Letha or it wouldn't just die if I did, but I'm curious on your opinions.

Angelic:

Heheheh, for once Letha is being the corruptive influence...though probably not the most shocking thing Raven has heard before.

ImpishInfamous:

Aww, Yeager's off? I shall have to work on that, I shall... He's a very complicated personality, even knowing his background it's still kinda hard to figure out what's going through his mind. On the other hand, if after twenty-eight chapters that's your only major criticism then I'm doing pretty well (unless you're being nice and not pointing out dozens of other problems? Oh dear...). I'll try to do even better for all of my readers!

x x x

Chapter 29: I'm More a Thinker Than a Diver

x x x

"This thing all things devours; birds, beasts, trees, flowers. Gnaws iron, bites steel, grinds hard stone to meal, slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down!"

I paused again, giving my audience a chance to try guessing this one.

Karol furrowed his brow, and started asking the names of various monsters I'd never heard of before, and didn't bother trying to remember.

Rita was rattling off different theorized formulas she claimed could achieve all, or most, of those results, and I had to head her off and remind her there were no blastia in this story.

Yuri was just listening, walking ahead a little bit with Repede. I'd been wondering if he'd been able to figure out any of the riddles on his own and just didn't answer so he could watch the others struggle.

I didn't think Raven was really trying, he was just saying whatever first came to his head as being "funny." Or complaining that the one about eggs made him hungrier. I _had_ noticed that the fish riddle, the one that starts with, "Alive without breath, as cold as death," made him pale a bit. He had covered by loudly declaring it must be his ex-girlfriend, and that he'd always suspected she was cold blooded.

But between them, Estelle and Judith managed to guess most of the riddles. Estelle had apparently read similar ones in a book somewhere (go figure) and Judith "just had a hunch" about the ones the princess didn't understand.

"Oh!" Estelle's eyes lit up with anticipation. "Is it-"

"Time to wrap it up," Yuri told us. "We're nearly there."

"Aaand, Yuri wins! The answer is 'time'!" I announce, pointing at the swordsman. "Bravo, your prize is an angry Gollum!"

He brushed it off with a shrug, "I've dealt with worse."

"He will stalk you for seventy years and then switch to target your yet unborn progeny." _Well, not like Yuri has any siblings to provide him with a great nephew to leave his "inheritance" to. ...Geez, I just realized that made Gollum sound a bit like a child molester or something._

"...Okay, that's kinda freaky."

"I've had nightmares of him trying to strangle me in my sleep."

"Never fear, no matter how late at night it is, old Raven's always ready ta comfort a lady!" I gave Raven a light shove to the shoulder.

We'd been in sight of Torim Harbor for awhile, but there's a deceptively long stretch of time between first seeing a place and actually arriving there when you're walking cross country. Since I'd reached the part of the story where Bilbo plays a riddle game with Gollum, I tried to make the last stretch of monotonous walking a bit more interesting by encouraging everyone to interact with the story more.

Karol beamed around the port town as we entered inside the barrier. "I know we haven't been gone for long...but I have to say, it still feels good to be back."

"Should I get you pansies some tissues? Or can we go to the inn now? I'm soo hungry!" The older man rubbed his stomach and gave us a pathetic look.

"All right, all right," Yuri sighed.

Off in search of the inn! Which when thinking about it I realized we never actually spent the night in when we were last here. Right, Raven gave us his "tip" about the Blood Alliance, and we ran right back out of town.

_...If memory serves, we'll get to take our time leaving this time. Yeees, and we'll be on a boat! Yay!_

I also remembered that the game had a scene where the group finds a woman who tells them her flowers were blooming out of season, Rita theorizes it was a higher level of aer causing it, and Judith sneaks away to destroy the blastia causing it. The scene was humorous when you didn't know what was up, and sobering once you did.

But that flower bed wasn't on the way to the Polux I inn, so I guessed it wouldn't happen quite that way. Everyone was too hungry to put off our late lunch any longer, and there was some important planning to be done.

Our meal was pretty simple, composed of sandwiches made from the inn's leftovers since we'd arrived after the standard lunch hours. I made my own, afraid that if I left it to someone else it wouldn't match my simple but precise sandwich requirements.

…

What? So I can be picky about my food, who cares?

But we didn't talk about anything important until we'd retreated to a room. It wasn't exactly a great idea to casually discuss in the open that Estelle was a princess wandering around with a ragtag band of adventurers as her only protection.

"Huh. So even the Union can't sit still when it knows a princess of the empire is out on the loose." Yuri leaned against the wall next to slightly ornate dresser and table, crossing his arms as he looked to Raven for confirmation.

Estelle looked at her hands, folded neatly in her lap. "Then the Don knows that I'm a candidate for the imperial throne too."

"Yup. That's why he told me ta come keep an eye on ya." Raven sat down on one of the beds, pulling his legs up so he was sitting almost Indian style (Or pretzel, if that's how you want to call it. Since his legs weren't actually crossed I mentally categorized it as "meditative" or "butterfly").

Karol dropped down to sit on the floor, in the way that only children and very unselfconscious people do. "So you're here to observe her? That's kind of creepy." _I seriously love him for saying that. Too often game characters just accept something like this without question._

"Really?" Estelle asked him with unfeigned surprise. _See?_

"What...? Is it just me?" Karol asked with some confusion.

"Nah, I agree with you," I assured him. "But you've probably already gotten used to being watched by people because of your position, right Estelle?"

"I suppose I have."

"Anyway," Raven continued, drawing attention back to himself, "here I finally catch up with ya and I wind up stickin' my foot in that mess back there. It hasn't been easy for old Raven," he bemoaned.

"...But why worry so much about Estelle?" Karol still questioned.

"It's only natural considering the state of things between the empire and the Union," Rita told him from her seat on the other bed. I let the others take charge of the conversation so it followed the game's pattern while I thought to myself.

Raven was ordered to watch Estelle. Raven _also_ had been ordered to got to Nordopolica to give a letter from the Don to Belius. Now, it seemed to me it would be contradictory for the Don to not only tell a very important member of his guild to follow a princess God knew where, but also give him a very urgent note to pass onto someone he might never meet if said princess never dropped by the area. This reasoning had always made me suspect (even before I had confirmation that Raven was leading a double life) that the order to watch her actually came from Alexei.

_Then again, the Don never seemed to question why Raven was following the group around, so maybe he did order it? Pretty coincidental though, that he sends the man who'd be watching us anyway. And doesn't it ever occur to anyone that it's a bit odd that the _Empire_ doesn't also arrange for some type of observer?_ Given, a lot of their attempts to bring Estelle back are foiled by this group, but wouldn't they at least try to make her agree to one or two knights as an escort on her journey? _Hmm, wait, Flynn's supposed to join at some point in the PS3 version...but that's like really late in the game, right?_

Well, so the empire actually did have an escort provided for Estelle in the form of Raven, but then only Raven and Alexei were supposed to know about that.

While I mentally chased my tail around in circles, getting nowhere I hadn't been before when everything was just a game, Raven was filling in the details about his orders (sans the important double agent side to them). And Rita was telling us that we were idiots for planning to go find a giant bird in a desert.

I really couldn't blame Rita for thinking we were crazy. Estelle's "go there and ask around" plan was even less than half baked. If I didn't know it was going to work out, I'd be throwing my own piece in with the mage.

Yuri was looking over the envelope the letter was in, but fortunately wasn't rude enough to open other people's mail. Judith was asking Raven something, I tuned in about half way through. "-what's written in the letter?"

"Hm. It's got somethin' ta do with those monsters that attacked Dahngrest. In particular about that Phaeroh chap you all are followin'." _ ...Wait..._ "The Don thinks Belius will know somethin' about that monster."

Now why hadn't I thought of that particular detail yet? The Don knew Belius, and he knew she was an Entelexeia. That's why he'd ask her, so that lead me to the conclusion that he'd also realized that Phaeroh was an Entelexeia and not the average giant monster. _And if he realized Estelle had something to do with Phaeroh's appearance...well that's another reason for the argument that he actually did order Raven to watch her_.

Ahh, I was getting myself lost in my own mental labyrinth!

"Looks like it just became worth our while to pay this Belius a visit too," Yuri mused, turning the letter over once more (_what, is he trying to read it through the envelope?_) before passing it back to the archer.

I sighed to myself and tuned out again, as the rest was just minor details part of wrapping up the conversation. Everything important had already been said.

"Does this mean we're on our own until we leave tomorrow?" I blinked at Judith's question, and realized that with my repeated zoning out I had missed Rita leaving.

Karol nodded, "Yeah. We'll all meet down at the harbor then." Taking this as a dismissal, everyone stood up from the spots they had settled into to take advantage of the free night in town.

"Letha, are you feeling okay? You've been kind of quiet." I looked up and found that rather than leaving, Estelle was examining me with concern.

"Uh, nothing's wrong. I was just thinking." I tried smiling brightly at her, and though she didn't really seem convinced she nodded. I stood up from the corner I'd been sitting in (on the floor. Like Karol. Yep.) and brushed my coat so that it was hanging straight in the back. "I'm gonna go take a walk, finish turning a few things over in my mind. See ya later tonight."

"Alright," she nodded and stepped aside so I could leave the room. Sweet girl really. Though not so much so that I found her sickening. Of course, that type of personality didn't bother me as much in real life since it was a refreshing change from how most people act like idiots. Such purely nice people were only annoying in stories and games because they were, well, too good to be true.

I'd more or less dropped the mobius loop that was me trying to figure out who told Raven to do what. The purpose behind wandering the harbor aimlessly was to see if I'd get a reaction from my tattoo. We hadn't seen more than a small portion last time, so maybe I had missed it...

It was only about mid afternoon, so even though towns and cities were larger than their game counterparts I had a large chunk of time to search with. Hoping it was the most efficient method, I started at one end of the city and took a meandering route through the main and back streets. If you had a map of the city, you could probably trace my route as a rough zigzag or squiggle.

At some point I passed by the flower bed that was supposed to be affected by aer, and noticed a thinning stream of smoke rising from the nearby warehouse. There were workers standing nearby, shaking their heads and wondering loudly how someone managed to break the aero blastia and get away without anyone seeing anything. Go Judith.

Despite my hopes, I'd covered pretty much every corner without turning anything up. At the end I was standing down by the docks, and it looked like there was little more than a half hour left before sunset. Sighing over a wasted afternoon, I found a dock with no boat attached and took a seat with my legs hanging off the end.

Swinging my legs, I began humming some half remembered melody while I watched the waves surge in and out again under my feet. Eventually I swung my legs back up so that I was lying on my stomach, and reached a hand down to trail my fingers through the water. I froze instantly, "You've gotta be kidding me..."

Quickly I drew my hand back, pulled the glove off, and stuck my fingers back in the water. Sure enough, I could feel a warmth in my hand and a glimmer of orange light shone from the tattoo.

…

_Some days I just hate life._

I sat up again, and while I glowered at the water, debating whether I should just jump in and get it over with, footsteps coming down the stone dock behind me (yes, docks made of stone, not the wooden ones I normally picture in a fantasy themed world). Looking back I saw someone with a jumble of easel, canvas, and boxes holding what I inferred to be paints held haphazardly in his arms.

While I watched, he somehow managed to get his leg tangled in one of the easel's legs and tripped himself, armful flying wide as he flailed his hands out to catch himself. I winced as man and painting tools all crashed down.

Not being totally heartless (as some would maintain I am) I hopped up and started gathering up the loose jars that had come out of the boxes and were about to roll off the dock edge. Opening the lid of one, I saw richly pigmented red paint, with a smell that had me wrinkling my nose. Even back home some paints had a funny odor when you opened them, and here it was likely an artist would make his own paints out of raw materials.

After screwing the lid back on, I brought them back over to the clumsy man. He was sitting up and frantically looking over the taut canvas on its wooden frame for any signs of damage. "You okay?" Now that he wasn't hidden behind a mountain of stuff, I saw he was relatively young (maybe a few years older than Yuri and me? Not as old as Raven though), had curly brown hair, and a darker skin tone that looked natural rather than tanned by the sun. There were paint stains on his hands, sleeves, the front of his shirt, and even a few smeared across his face.

"Fine, fine, happens all the time," he said cheerily, and sighed with relief once satisfied that the canvas hadn't torn. He looked up at me, and noticed my armful of jars. "Oh, thank you for your help!" He jumped up and shook my hand enthusiastically, causing me to drop several jars again. We both scrambled to pick them up before they could roll into the ocean.

He introduced himself as Vincent Russo while I helped him set up his easel. He'd come from Dahngrest to visit his older sister, and had wanted to paint the sunset from the docks while here. I could see that he'd already started, the canvas entirely filled with rough shapes and base colors.

"Would you mind if I watched?" I asked shyly. It was always a pleasure to see someone better than me work, and sometimes I even came away with some ideas of how to improve my own painting.

"Not at all, feel free!" Vincent chirped as he arranged a few dollops of paint on his pallet. Once he put brush to paint, though, his peppy personality abruptly calmed. His expression while stroking paint across canvas was so intent that I'd bet he even forgot that I was there. Occasionally he'd tuck the brush behind an ear and fumble through the jars of paint without looking, yet somehow draw out apparently the exact color he'd been looking for.

The painting was lovely, exactly the sort of sunset I'd always been meaning to try my hand at. A beautiful melding of warm oranges and reds with hints of yellow and pink splashing across wisps of clouds. Dark waves of the ocean grabbed these colors and reflected them again, creating a unity between sea and sky. The very bottom and right corner had the ends of the docks, a muted piece of humanity reaching out to touch nature's display.

"Are you almost done for the day?" A woman's voice from behind made us both jump in surprise. I turned around a found a young woman with the same dark coloring as Vincent, meaning she was probably his older sister. She grinned broadly and looked sidelong at me as she added, "Ohh, I see. You're showing off for a new girlfriend."

_Gyaah! What is it about Vesperia that every man I associate with seems to automatically become a potential boyfriend?_ I blushed with embarrassment like I had all those other times. She laughed at my expression (apparently it wasn't quite dark enough to hid my blush) and slapped me on the shoulder. "I'm just pullin' your leg! My brother's too dorky to get a girlfriend!" _Her personality...it's what you'd call "one of the guys," right?_

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black, sis? It's not like you've had a boyfriend in years!" Vincent jabbed back.

"My own baby brother! You wound me!" she cried and threw her arms up in the air. I was a bit nervous that this would turn into a shouting match, until they couldn't fight down their grins any longer. I relaxed as the sister leaned over and gave her brother a quick hug, heedless of the new wet paint stains on his shirt. Then she turned to me and held out a hand, "My name is Grace Russo, and you've already met my brother Vinny."

"Letha Vitae," I shook hands with her. Then noticed for the first time the battered black instrument case lying on the dock next to her. "So the brother's an artist, and the sister's a musician?"

"My brother _thinks _he's an artist, though he just doodles all day," Grace said fondly, "but I actually have a job. The violin is just a hobby."

"Just a hobby my foot," Vincent snorted. Then he told me in a loud whisper clearly meant to be heard by Grace, "She's always playing during her free time. When we were kids she even bragged that someday she'd go to Zaphias and play for the emperor." He shrugged, "But now there's no emperor to play for, and times are tough."

"That's a shame," I murmured sympathetically. It really sucked when reality brought you crashing down.

…

_Reality's been pretty weird for me lately, though_.

Grace's eyes brightened, "Wanna hear a song?" Vincent groaned and she shot a quick glare at him. "I've been working on composing a new one!"

"Sure, I'd love to." She gestured for me to take a seat on the dock as she opened her case and tested to make sure the violin was tuned. It looked chipped and worn in several places, so I guessed she'd probably gotten it second hand, but the sound it made when she drew her bow across it was clear and striking. I grinned, excited to hear a _well_ played violin in person. Middle school orchestras playing in annual concerts had taught me to have a healthy respect for someone who knew how to work a string instrument.

If she had played any other song, I could have smiled and complimented her honestly before returning to the inn.

_Any_ other song.

But she played "Ring a Bell."

Hearing the opening song of Tales of Vesperia, a video game that shouldn't have more than a passing interest in my life, being played by a native of Terca Lumireis was overwhelming. It was like the impossibility of everything that had happened to me, that I had tried to brush off and act as if it were no big deal, it all suddenly came crashing down at once.

And on the violin the recognizable chorus acquired a quality that struck right to my heart.

_Why were we there back to back?_

_Why were we there face to face?_

_I must be the light when you're in the dark._

_If you lose me somewhere_

_and your tears are in the air_

_I will ring a bell until you feel me by your side_.

I barely even noticed when the violin stopped playing, and only heard the concerned tone of Grace and Vincent's questions as they hovered over me. But I had curled up, clasping my legs in close so my face was buried in my knees and arms.

My body shook as I tried to hold in the sobs that wanted to come out with the tears burning my eyes, but I blinked them away furiously and just gripped myself tighter. I'm not sure how long I stayed that way, heedless of the siblings fluttering around me, when I heard another familiar voice.

"What's goin' on here then?"

"We don't know! I was playing and she seemed fine. Then she suddenly started crying and won't tell us what's wrong!"

"'M not cryin'," I mumbled, sounding more like a petulant child than I would have liked. I don't think they heard me anyway.

"Let old Raven handle it, comfortin' beautiful women is my specialty!"

I laughed weakly. "Sure it is. And mine is walking on water." Random, but it would be interesting. Rubbing my arm across my eyes briskly, I finally tried looking up at the (now three) people hovering over me.

"Letha?" Raven was startled to recognize me. "Hey, whadda coincidence! What are ya doin' mopin' out here?"

"Not moping, just appreciating the fine arts."

"If sis' playing was that bad, you don't have to be nice," Vincent piped up, trying to lighten the atmosphere, "I have to put up with that screeching all the time!"

"Oh, buzz off you tone deaf scribbler," Grace gave him a shove before returning her concern to me. "Are you really all right? It wasn't my playing, was it?"

"No, no, if anything your music was beautiful enough to move someone to tears of appreciation!" I smiled and let her help me back up to my feet. "I'm sure someday you'll play for a much more distinguished audience, be it an emperor or an empress!" The violinist glowed at the praise.

"Alrighty, if we're all done talkin' about music an' what makes ladies cry, we should be gettin' back to the inn before we miss dinner!" Raven threw an arm around my shoulders and saluted the siblings as he started leading me away. I waved goodbye to them and let myself be carried along by Raven's good humor.

"It's all about food with you lately, isn't it?" I said playfully, resisting the urge to sniffle, or take a deep shuddering breath of air, or any of my other habits when fighting back tears. "If you're not careful, you're gonna end up getting fat."

"We can't have that, my fans would be devastated! You'll have to help me eat it all," I shoved Raven a bit.

"Smooth way to ask a girl out to dinner. Bet you wanted to use that one on Judith."

"Alas, I couldn't find Judith darlin'," he sighed dramatically. "You'll comfort this old man's broken heart, won't ya Letha honey?" _Whoops, weird associations with ZELOS now!_

"Why, Raven dear, I've never been one to give out pity dates. I'd hate to be leading you on."

"Ah, fallin' for the out o' reach ladies must be my curse! How cruel is life!" Raven mimed clutching at his heart with an agonized grimace, letting me go in order to do so to greatest melodramatic effect. The sight made me burst out in laughter, unable to stop and form an appropriate comeback. Raven returned to walking normally again and gave me a crooked grin.

"Well, glad yer back to normal. It's weird seein' ya all depressed like that."

"It's not something I like doing often," I said softly.

"But sometimes ya do?" He crossed his arms behind his head. "What was that about anyway?"

"...Nothing much..." I wasn't even going to bother trying to explain my breakdown. Very little of it was anything I even felt safe sharing with anyone, much less a man who may or may not relay all of it to one of the most dangerous people I could meet in this world.

Though thinking that way made me feel guilty. Putting the possibility he was trying to learn something about me for Alexei aside, I was sure at least that Raven was honest in his attempt to cheer me up. He was a gentleman and a good guy when he wanted to be. Normally he just chose to be a clownish old pervert.

"'Nothin' doesn't give ya red eyes from cryin'."

"Dangit, they're red?" I rubbed at them with a hand, as if that would return them to normal. _Wait, I don't think I actually cried enough for them to turn red yet, or at least they'd be fine by now._ I frowned at him accusingly. "...They're fine, aren't they."

"Can't tell, too dark," he said easily. "But now ya can't say ya weren't cryin' before." _He got me_.

"...I just felt kinda homesick for a minute there." I smiled so that I wouldn't cry. "There was always someone who really loved me nearby while I grew up. It's...kinda sad to think of how I left that behind."

"Then why'd ya leave?" _He must be digging now...or am I paranoid?_ "Sounds like ya didn't have ta."

"I kinda did. It's...complicated." Major understatement.

"Gotcha." Raven leaned in a bit, and grinned at me. "Yer family didn't like the books, did they? The ones 'without female characters'?"

"Pffft-!" I let out a fresh wave of laughter as we entered Polux I.

x x x

It might not be quite as bad as sneaking into Ragou's mansion on my own, but it was still near the top of the list of "Most Stupid Things I Have Ever Done."

I sneaked out of the inn in the middle of the night to get the heirloom piece my tattoo had indicated was near the docks. More specifically, under water near the docks. Brilliant idea.

At least I thought ahead a little bit. I wore my black Vesperia leggings and black Earth tank top, reasoning that those were least likely to get in my way and would absorb less water. Also borrowed a towel from the shared shower rooms. I had every intention of returning it! ...It and the rope I borrowed from another boat at a neighboring dock.

I spent some very miserable, cold hours (well they _felt_ like hours, but I'd probably have gotten hypothermia if it were that long) repeatedly diving at the end of the dock. The rope was tied around my waist and the dock, just as a precaution. I couldn't see (because of an...incident when I was a child, I'm practically incapable of opening my eyes underwater, and it was dark) so I had to rely on the warmth from my left hand to try and feel for the heirloom piece.

My right hand brushed against something that felt like a thin rod with a marble on the end on the fourth dive. On the sixth I managed to find and wrap my right hand around it and pull it out from the rocks it was wedged into. I consciously avoided touching it with my left hand because I was positive Nevi wouldn't take to kindly to being summoned _underwater_. Amusing as I would personally find it.

Once I'd pulled myself back up on the dock, I sprawled out to just enjoy breathing and shiver in peace. Eventually I lifted the piece up before my eyes to study it in the faint light from the street lamps and my still glowing left hand. It looked pretty much just like the first one I'd found, polygonal ruby on one end, marble like sapphire on the other. Thin silver rod with vines etched into it. Though if I remembered right, some of the three Alastor had waved at me had different jewels on them. _Wonder what that's about_...

I considered the thin rod I held in my right hand for another moment, then tucked it safely into the secret pocket of my bag. Nevi could wait, and I didn't want to risk having some random passerby see him when he showed up with an unnecessarily flashy entrance. I'd wait until we were in a less populated area, and the others weren't likely to walk in on the meeting.

Though this meant I had to deal with my left hand glowing in the meantime. Fortunately, the light didn't shine through the material of my glove (or else why would I have bought them in the first place?) so I'd have to be careful not to take it off again when someone could notice. _Uhh, actually, the others know about the whole random glowing thing already, right? Except for Judith and Raven?_ I doubted the others would have brought it up, if they even still remembered that conversation. _Let's not bring it up. Better safe than sorry_.

I toweled off, slipped my green coat, socks, and boots back on (_Oh God, warmth!_) and quietly made my way back to the inn.

x x x

"What, did Rita cast magic in her sleep again?"

"I only did that _once!_ Just let it go already!"

"She can cast in her sleep? Scary!"

I had hung my wet clothes on a line by the fireplace so they'd be dry by the next morning. Unfortunately the fire had died overnight and my clothes were still damp when the others got up for breakfast. I heard them talking as I came down the stairs feeling particularly zombie like. Not enough sleep before Judith woke me up, and the muscles in my arms and legs still felt fatigued from the swim.

"We didn't even share a room, how could I have possibly cast anything at her?" I had to pause and listen in on this. What would they all decide happened during the night?

"Maybe one of you was sleepwalking?"

"Hmm, now that you mention it, I recall that she left our room for awhile during the night. I'm not sure when she came back."

"So Letha was sleepwalking, went into Rita and Estelle's room, and Rita cast Splash at her?"

"But there wasn't anything wet in our room this morning..."

"That's why I keep telling you, I didn't have anything to do with it!"

"How else could she have gotten her things wet?"

"Maybe she went for a swim."

"In the middle of the night?"

"Why not? It's the perfect time ta have some fun away from pryin' eyes."

"Or you could all just ask her, right Letha?"

"You caught me, Yuri." I came down the last few steps and joined them in the common room. "Actually, I was having trouble getting to sleep, so I went down to the docks to look at the stars." Yep, I had prepared a story. "But I tripped on something and fell in." The brief moment of silence that followed would totally have everyone sweatdropping if it were an anime. Well, maybe not Judith. I have trouble imagining her sweatdropping.

Rita threw her hands up in the air, muttering something that sounded like, "I can't believe her!" as she stalked off past me back up to her room again. The stairs creaked as she climbed up them. _Oh, that's how Yuri figured out someone, namely me, was on the stairs_.

"Moving on," said Yuri (_Uh huh, ignore me, why don't you all?_), "Everyone ready to go?"

"What should we do about Rita?" Estelle asked, looking in concern towards the stairs.

"That one has her own matters to attend to," Judith stated calmly.

"That sounds about right," our swordsman agreed. I simply waited...

The stairs behind me creaked again, "So, first to the harbor and then find a boat?" Rita came back down, her own small traveling bag in hand and a few books under her arm.

"Huh?" Karol blinked at her owlishly. "You mean..."

Yuri tilted his head a bit, "Are you coming too?"

"Yeah."

"Wasn't there somethin' you had to go do?" Raven reminded her.

"You were going to investigate the aer krene, weren't you?" Estelle looked perplexed, but not at all unhappy by the development.

"It turns out the one at Keiv Moc the Commandant asked me to look into has already been researched. I hadn't really made up my mind about which route to take to research the others."

"So you'll be using us to help with your investigations?" Judith inquired, and I couldn't help but remember her little rebuke of Estelle for using the guild for her own personal crusades. _Hey hey, aren't we turning into an escort service?_

Rita smiled at us, looking sweet and winning as a normal fifteen year old girl. _Weeeird_. "Well, there's no guarantee I won't run into trouble like back at Heliord." _Admitting it might be too much for her? Where's the real Rita?_ "Anyway it'll be safer for me this way than going alone." The last part was delivered with the logic of a scientist, and she looked around to see if how we took it. Fortunately, she had no way of knowing my weird mental rantings...

Estelle was nearly bubbling over with relief and joy. "This means we'll be able to travel together again. I'm so happy!"

"Yeah," Rita agreed enthusiastically, then blushed a bit as she said, "I...um. You know, it's no big deal." _Heheheh, forgot yourself for a moment?_ "A-anyway, we were going to the harbor, right?"

"Ah, ta be young again, I tell ya," Raven sighed.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him dryly, inwardly cackling since I'd been waiting to make a comment like this for ages. "My uncle has at least ten years on you and could take us all in a fight at once!"

"Seriously?" Karol asked, wide eyed in amazement.

"Well, maybe not all of us," I conceded, "but the man is pretty damn fit."

"I think I hope I never meet the guy," Raven observed.

"He's a former guild member, right?" I nodded to Estelle. "What was his name again?"

"Ludwig. Ludwig Vitae."

"Really," Raven scratched his chin, "I've been in the guilds awhile, but I can't say I've heard of him."

"Apparently he was a member of the Protectors," Karol felt the need to tell him.

"Huh, now that name sounds a little familiar." _Really? I think it was before your time in the guilds, though. Raven couldn't have joined Altosk anymore than ten years ago..._ Well, if Karol had heard about the disbanded guild, than why not Raven?

"We were going to the harbor?" Yuri reminded us. Sheepishly we all went out through the door. _Wait, why am I the only one who didn't get to eat breakfast? Stupid fairy heirloom, making me stay up late and sleep in..._

x x x

Ahhhh...I could have made this longer, but I wanted to save the next parts for the next chapter...

Violin version of Ring a Bell – you tube .com/ watch?v=3ZSOdpQuSUg

Or look up Unexchanged Feelings on youtube.

Raise of hands, how many people thought it was Yuri come to comfort little depressed Letha on the docks? Come on, I know _some_ of you thought that for at least a moment!

A little background to clarify that part, Torim Harbor is one of those places where the player has Yuri have little one on one talks with everyone in the party. Raven, when you talk to him, is on the docks. So, the way I have it we can say Yuri had his talk with Raven (which was basically "I don't really trust you, and wish we didn't have to bring you along"), Raven ends it by saying he's heading back to the inn, then after he leaves he passes by another dock (maybe heard a bit of violin before) and there's two people fussing over what appears to be a young woman curled up in pain (that's what it probably looked like to the observer). And we know how it goes from there.

I would have really liked to have some monster names to throw out there for Karol's guesses at the Hobbit riddle, perhaps one of those Gigantos or whatever they were called, but yeah. I don't really know the names of any likely generic Vesperia monsters. Same for Rita's formula guesses, but I don't know any "theorized" ones (you know, like the Rhizomata one?). I could have just made whatever up for either of them, but didn't feel quite right doing that. Not a big thing, but something I may edit someday...


	30. Chapter 30: Yo Ho Ho! Hold the Rum!

Spoilers galore for anyone who hasn't finished the game. But who wouldn't have realized that by now?

Whew, took longer to get this out than I thought. I have a new part time job that I'm in training for, so that's thrown me for a loop (I had to get up so early!). But hey, I get free hot chocolate there! And once I settle in I'll probably have time to get out some small ideas that are bouncing in my head for pictures and omakes.

My thanks to the reviewers who have been rereading and pointing out small errors I missed, and for the suggestions they've been giving. Help is always welcome, and even if something you mentioned doesn't find a way into the story I want you guys to know I appreciate the all the thought you've given to this!

Review responses:

Angelic: Raven can just keep digging. Who knows, maybe he actually will find something that even I don't know about! If he doesn't fall into the trap pits along the way.

ImpishInfamous: Very glad to hear that then. I hope you continue to enjoy my writing just as much!

And to my anonymous reviewer: I am very flattered by your assessment of my story. I haven't shown my work to such a large audience before, and thought out critiques are very encouraging to me. I must say I didn't originally intend for Letha to be so crazy but decided it wasn't far-fetched for her to develop in such a direction considering her situation. I hoped that the down to earth side of her personality and observations of the world she's in would help differentiate her from the other crazy OCs (who I have nothing against, I'm very fond of some of their perspectives). Hearing that it's working is gratifying.

x x x

Chapter 30: Yo Ho Ho! Hold The Rum!

x x x

"Oh Ioder," Estelle said in surprise, spotting a familiar blond in green with his small entourage on the other side of the street.

Oh Ioder indeed. I totally forgot that the group meets him on the streets of Torim on their way to get a boat. I mean, Ioder is kind of a forgettable side character.

"Oh... It's you all," the other throne candidate did not sound all that pleased to see us. "We meet again." Rather than shout at us from across the street, he crossed to our side. Once he was closer, I was surprised to notice that his face was paler than usual and there were dark circles under his eyes.

Estelle noticed them too. "You don't look so good, are you feeling alright?"

The honest concern in her voice made him smile faintly, "I am fine, I've just been rather busy lately." _Guess rather than unhappy about running into us, the poor guy's just awful tired._

"So what's a successor to the imperial throne doing in a place like this?" Yuri probed, not caring that he was sticking his nose into the business of the de facto emperor. _Yes, officially there is no ruler and it could go to either Ioder or Estelle, but come on. She clearly never had a large influence over politics even when she was back in the castle, and he's the one who's been trying to negotiate with the guilds for crying out loud!_

"I've been working with the Don to officially seal our treaty of friendship." _See?_

"Is it going well?" Estelle asked hopefully. Her expression fell a bit when it probably occurred to her that Ioder wouldn't look so tired if things were going well..

"Well..." he answered slowly, looking for a nice way to put it (seeing as he had his imperial image to think of, and couldn't just flip his lid when he got fed up with people. That would be so out of character, I'd find it hilarious...), "I wish I could say it were going better."

Raven was sympathetic. "I can imagine. That Heracles monstrosity kinda made the Union really not like the empire."

"Yes, and now, prominent members of the empire are voicing their doubts regarding the friendship treaty." Other than a slight crease in his forehead from a nearly unnoticeable frown, Ioder did well to hide how frustrated the situation must make him.

Raven stroked his stubbled chin thoughtfully, "The conditions the Don gave the empire were for a treaty of equality, after all."

"And they are certainly not on equal footing with something like that," Judith finished for him.

"Yes..." Ioder's eyes dropped to study the ground, appearing a bit ashamed of himself. "Had I known about Heracles beforehand I could have stopped them, but..."

"You didn't know about that thing?" Yuri burst in, disbelieving and maybe even a bit angry. I certainly hadn't heard him raise his voice like that often. "You're in line to be emperor!"

The prince raised his eyes just a bit. "I know. But I have no authority over the Imperial Knights."

Estelle began to recite again, "The Imperial Knights act on orders from the emperor alone. They do not report to anyone else." _Damn, that girl has awesome recall. I wonder if she remembers every book she's read or something_.

"Well, then, it's easy," said Yuri, calm again, "Just become emperor."

The princess was startled, "...You mean..." The attendants who'd been standing silent as old geezer statues behind Ioder shifted and murmured among themselves.

"Becoming emperor isn't as simple as that," Ioder told us, a bit regretfully.

"Why not?" asked Rita, who's world view was straightforward enough that she probably thought either Estelle or Ioder could sit on the throne and say, "S'up guys, I'm in charge now!" Thinking a bit more seriously, _the emperor also appoints the nobility... Currently power seems to be roughly evenly split between the knights and the council, maybe a bit more in Alexei's favor, but once either Estelle or Ioder is placed on the throne they'd have a ridiculous amount of authority as ruler... It's no wonder we have people from both sides scheming to snatch away that fancy seat._

"To ascend to the throne, one must possess the imperial treasure, Dein Nomos. But Dein Nomos went missing around the time of the Great War, ten years ago..." _Went missing and somehow ended up in Duke's hands_.

_Come to think of it, how did Duke get it? I don't think they ever mention that...not that I heard of_.

"Hmm, so that's the real story why we still don't have an emperor..." I glanced at Raven briefly, wondering if he really didn't know about that. He was, after all, a captain and one of Alexei's most trusted men. Probably most trusted. Okay, Raven could have once been Alexei's right hand man for all I knew, but by now the Commandant probably didn't fully trust anyone.

"What was that, Yuri?" Karol looked over at the swordsman, who looked like he was also thinking hard about something. I blinked, realizing he'd muttered something to himself that I had missed.

"Forget it. It's nothing." _...Oh! Right! Ragou says something about Dein Nomos right before he dies! Er, died. Is dead now. Dammit, I don't feel like I got any closure out of that_. But anyway, that must have been what Yuri was preoccupied with.

"Anyway," Rita chose to ignore him, "is it really okay for an imperial candidate to be wandering the streets like this?"_ Like we're ones to talk_.

"I was just on my way to Heliord." The attendants shuffled in place, perhaps hoping Ioder's answer would remind him of their business and bring the conversation to a close.

"Ah, that is closer to Dahngrest than this place is," Raven observed. "Negotiations would probably go smoother there."

"I believe so, too." _Hmm, in the game, he says this with a ridiculously naïve and optimistic expression and tone. But now it gives more an impression of "I hope it actually works, or I don't know what we'll do."_ I really did not envy him.

Nothing against Estelle, but I really believed Ioder was the better prospect for the throne. In my opinion, a good leader (especially for a monarchy) is a person who does the job even at his own expense out of a sense of duty without ambition. Well, my views are a bit more complicated than that, but that's more than enough for now. Estelle was a good person, and would do anything to help people in need, but being on a throne wasn't the best way for her to help. Privately I thought that was more likely to break her kind spirit.

One of the older attendants waiting 'patiently' for the prince stepped forward with his head bowed humbly. "Master Ioder, we should be off."

Ioder nodded to him, and gave us a cordial, "If you'll please excuse me..." before he allowed his entourage to sweep him off down the street again.

Estelle sighed heavily, and I wasn't sure if it was relief that things may go smoother for the alliance in Heliord or from feelings of guilt for leaving all that work on Ioder's plate. But she didn't say anything, so we let her be with her own thoughts.

As we walked, I rubbed at the back of my left hand through the glove material. Even though I had resolved to ignore it, the constant warmth from the tattoo was a bit uncomfortable and made me wish I could take the glove off. Hopefully I'd have a chance to hand the piece off to Nevi soon. As it was, I wasn't sure if I'd notice another heirloom piece even if it were three feet away, what with the mark on my hand already going crazy.

When we reached the docks I started to look around expectantly. _Where is our convenient boat provided by the convenient presence of Kaufman, who conveniently just acquired a need to hire new bodyguards?_ So much coincidence happens in RPGs... But, it couldn't really be that easy, could it?

"Against that many? You've gotta be crazy!"

"I wouldn't do that even if I had nine lives!"

..._Ahhh_.

"What's going on?" Yuri looked questioningly towards a neighboring dock, missing my facepalm.

"Halt! If you won't do the work I've paid you for, then I want my money back!"_ Yuuup. There's the all business, gets exactly what she wants voice I remember from the game_. "Add the Indigo Beasts to the blacklisted guilds!" I looked up to see a red, orange, and white figure on the next dock start pacing angrily, a dull brown clad lackey following her steps.

"Yes, Madam President." _Pfft! Kaufman for President! She'd whip America into shape in no time!_ The scary thing was I could totally see that.

Estelle tilted her head questioningly. "Isn't that the woman we met at Deidon Hold?"

Yuri nodded "Yeah, that's her all right..."

"Wh-why do you guys know her?" Karol looked at them both.

"We just met her once a while back. She a friend of yours?"

"I wouldn't say I know her. She's the president of Fortune's Market, one of the five master guilds."

"In other words," Raven added to Karol's explanation, "she's one of the top dogs of the Union."

"Humph..." Yuri's expression was a bit too complicated for me to figure out how he took that bit of information.

"Hey, I just got an idea...!" We all looked back to Karol expectantly. "Maybe she could get a boat for us to take across to Desier." Now, please give me a moment. We just established that she was one of the most important people in all the guilds, and he gets the idea that she'll find a boat for us even though we're perfect strangers to her?

_...SIGH. RPG logic, and it works anyway. Unless, I dunno, Yuri said something in Deidon Hold that really offended her. Which I doubt_. I should really let this go, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.

I followed in everyone else's wake as we went to try out Karol's ingenious idea, suddenly struck with a slight fear that I'd jinxed it and we'd have to fork over a fortune in cash to get a boat from somebody. Kaufman spied us coming. More specifically, she spied our distinctive black dressed swordsman.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Yuri Lowell. You've come at just the right time." She struck a confident pose, hand on hip and head up proud as her red hair and orange coat tails flapped in the sea breeze. _Now I want a coat like hers...in a different color._

"Huh, I guess those wanted posters really do work," he joked.

"Listen, I've got a job that would be just perfect for you." _She really doesn't beat around the bush_.

"Hard labor, huh?" Yuri asked without much enthusiasm.

"I like a man who can cut to the chase." When a woman says something like that, usually you'd think she's trying to be flirty and seductive. But Kaufman was...it was more like she's going through the motion as part of bargaining protocol. Or something. Like she was throwing it out there to see if it would help, and ignored it when he didn't bite. "As you may have heard, schools of mermen often attack cargo ships at this time of the year."

"Huh? But I thought there was another guild that always served as your escort..." Karol started dubiously.

"It seems the leader of the mercenary guild I hire passed away suddenly, so they aren't available. The other guardian guild simply has no backbone," she shook her head disdainfully, perhaps thinking about the guildsmen who had just run away screaming. Yeah, that had been kinda pathetic. "I don't know what to do."

Karol was still curious. "What was the name of that guardian guild you mentioned?"

"The Blood Alliance." BWAHAHA! 'TIS A SMALL WORLD! Ugh...

"Gee, I wonder what could have happened to them," Rita eyed Yuri pointedly, the others following her example to stare at him. Even Repede gave him a look, I was rather amused to notice.

"You're all as guilty as I am..." he defended himself in an undertone just quiet enough that Kaufman couldn't hear.

I raised my hand slightly, "I'm not." The deadpan stare he gave me said clearly that I wasn't helping. "Just saying..."

The swordsman (with mildly offended pride) turned away from us and Kaufman and waved a careless hand. "Hate to disappoint you, but we're in the middle of something right now, so...see you around."

"Wait, Yuri!" Karol cried before the man could walk away. Being all about supporting the budding guild boss, Yuri had to stop and listen. "What about the boat?"

"Hm? Did you say 'boat'?" Kaufman acquired a calculating glint to her eyes...and glasses. I swear it's true, she happened to turn her head slightly, and I was at an angle where that reflected the morning sun from her glasses. The result was that I was suddenly very, very afraid of her. Because that is always a bad sign from an anime character who just got an idea.

While I inwardly berated myself for being silly and irrational, Yuri faced the merchant president, "We've made a guild of our own." _You know, I never gave it much thought when watching the playthrough, but I don't think he really likes her much. ...Maybe because she's such a controlling type? She basically throws money at him and goes "Sit boy!" when they first meet._

Probably utterly oblivious to the subtly defiant ticks Yuri'd been giving off the whole conversation, Karol took the moment to very proudly brag, "We're called Brave Vesperia!"

"That's a wonderful name." She smiled, "Well then, shall we talk business?" _Oh no, smile and glinting glasses!_ "Mutual gain is one of the basics of all business, you know. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

"Sorry, but like I said, we're in the middle of a job. We can't take on anything else right now," Yuri responded reasonably. _Hmm, doesn't sound aggressive or like he hates her guts now. She did help him last time, so I guess at worst she might occasionally rub him the wrong way._

"We won't call it business, then," She returned. "Let's just say we'll cooperate as two guilds helping each other out. That way we won't be going against any guild principles." She turned away a bit and gave a sidelong look over her shoulder, daring him to back down, "There are various...incentives for getting along with me, you know." _Volley returned, ball's in your court Yuri!_

"Umm, well..." Karol looked bewildered by Kaufman's onslaught, though Yuri remained composed.

"All right, we can talk, but we need to go to Nordopolica. We can't afford any detours."

"Fine with me. The mermen are only a problem in the waters near here. As long as I get to another port, I'm good. Once we arrive, I won't have any trouble making arrangements with another ship."

Karol stood in awe of the more experienced Guild President, "Wow, she means business...literally."

"So, do we have a deal?"

"I have the sinking feeling we just got tricked into something," Rita said a little gloomily.

"I know how you feel," I confided to the mage, "but when she puts it like that I can't think of any good reasons to turn her down." Well, the one being that the monsters we were supposed to protect her from would be strong, and we'd run into a haunted ship, but I didn't think it would fly well if I brought that second part up. I rubbed nervously at my left hand again. Fairies were real...what about ghosts?

"Fortune's Market isn't known as the best group of salesmen under the sun for nothin'," Raven remarked to us.

Judith hardly seemed bothered. "This isn't so bad. Now we have a way to cross over to Desier."

Kaufman smiled at our commentary from the peanut gallery. "I'll even throw in a bonus for all of you."

The curiosity snagged Karol, "Bonus? What do you mean?"

"If we arrive safely in Nordopolica, I'll give you the boat we use to get there."

"R-really?" Karol's voice actually cracked a bit. Hey, his guild had prospects for owning it's own boat!

"Really suspiciously good bargain," I muttered.

Judith gave the boat a quick look over, "The boat looks pretty beat up, but it's still a good deal."

"Right?" Kaufman tried to entice us.

Yuri wasn't fooled. "So these mermen must be tough customers if you're willing to part with a boat."

"I'll leave that to your imagination," she answered vaguely.

Yuri shared a look with Karol, "I figured as much."

The lack of angry denial seemed to count as acceptance. "Marvelous! We have a contract then." With that established, she immediately took charge, "Now that we've settled the details, I'd like you to get to work right away."

_A sailing we shall go, a sailing we shall go..._

x x x

Seeing as we'd already been carrying all our stuff with us, Kaufman and her shadowing lackey (I don't think I caught his name...I don't think the game even gave him one) quickly ushered us onto the boat and gave us a quick introduction to Tokunaga (awesome...sailor with an afro!). Followed by us proceeding to stay the _hell_ out of the way of the people who knew what they were doing so the could get the _Fiertia_ out onto open water.

In RPGs, there's always that point where you finally get the vehicle that allows you to travel freely between most major landmasses, excluding one or two for plot purposes. Then those become open for exploration once you get an airship of some form. Maybe this wasn't true of all games, but it happened in all the games I'd had the chance to play. And the NPC nominally in charge of actually moving this vehicle (if the game designers even bothered to throw one in) is only for show while the player cavorts across the world map with any passing whim as navigator.

NOT SO.

Tokunaga was in charge of everything, and we as the sailing-ignorant passengers had to obey any instructions he gave us. Which wasn't often since he had his own underlings to boss around, two deckhands named Biggs and Wedge. Much to Estelle's concern I audibly choked when we got their names.

"Are you alright? What's wrong?"

"Nothin', nothin', don' mind me..." I waved feebly as I thumped at my chest with a fist. _Final Fantasy stock names? Here? It's not like those are exactly common names. If one of them was called Cid, I could let that go, but Biggs and Wedge?_

I spent most of the morning slumped over a railing and watching the wake of the ship while I brooded over the likelihood that the fairies were somehow screwing with the fabric of Terca Lumireis to make me go mental. Or if I'd gone mental ages ago, and everything that had happened was a particularly detailed delusion cooked up by my sick mind.

_If that's the case, same logic for if this were a dream,_ I told myself._ Shut up and run with it. Either you're in denial and it's real, or you can enjoy the ride and have a laugh about it with your friends later_.

Thus averting any insane ranting and pacing that would have my new friends believing I'd caught cabin fever in record time, I settled in to enjoy the voyage the best I could.

x x x

_**This Is Soooooo Bad**_

_Yuri: We just started out, and we're already working with one of the five master guilds. This is good._

_*Karol enters and passes by slowly*_

_Judith: Yeah. You're one step closer to making your dream a reality, Karol. Aren't you happy?_

_Rita: You talking to the kid? He's over there mumbling about something._

_Karol: Mermen...the first thing had to be mermen. Brave Vesperia has some bad luck... What's the president of Fortune's Market gonna think of us if we fail? This is bad. This is soooo bad._

_Estelle: I don't think he's very happy._

_*Karol exits*_

_Letha: You'd almost think we'd already failed the job..._

_Judith: He's just being careful, that's all._

_Rita: That's not being careful. That's running and hiding._

_Letha: I'd call it "counting your chickens before they hatch" but...I've never heard of it being used so pessimistically._

x x x

Enjoy is an iffy term. There's only so long you can find the view of water, water, and more water in every direction (and that receding landmass that's too distant to actually make out any details) interesting. We had all taken to idly wandering around the ship in search of something to do. It had been ages since I'd last seen Repede, the dog had found some little haven to hide himself away in.

Karol, Estelle, and Rita cornered me and had me resume my narrative of The Hobbit. Eventually the more "mature" group members joined us, not having anything better to do for the time being. The mage kept breaking in to debate various plot points, even if all she had to say was "He threw burning pine cones at them? I'd have just blasted them all into crisps!" If not for the fact that Yuri, Raven, or Judith would either settle her down or make jokes about her logic ("And burn down the trees, dwarves and all, in the process"), I probably would have thrown up my hands at trying to come up with plausible excuses for elements that someone from Earth would take for granted in a children's story.

Story time had to be broken off when my voice started to go. We'd gotten through a good chunk of the story; out of the misty mountains, away from the pursuing goblins and wargs, meeting the eagles and the hermit man with animal servants (I almost forgot about him, and had to make up the name Bjorn for him. I was probably pretty off with that... Of course Rita, Karol, and Estelle all got very excited about the man who could shapeshift into a bear, and all for different reasons), and had gotten Bilbo and the dwarves good and lost deep in Mirkwood. It was pretty late in the afternoon by then.

Wanting some time alone, I retreated into one of the cabins. Instead of just the one room, there were three small ones with four beds (two sets of bunk beds) crammed into each. Us girls and the madame president had one to ourselves, the guys and the Fortune's Market lackey had the second, and the last one went to Tokunaga and his hands.

In the relative privacy of the otherwise empty room, I pulled out my notebook and flipped open to some blank pages near the back, just before the brief summary of my fake life story. With the light from one of those small round windows and a single candle I began to outline the "game events."

_**Yuri starts tracking down blastia thief.**_

_**Y locked up in dungeon. First meeting with Raven**_

_**Y breaks out and meets Estelle. Learns Flynn is probably in danger and fights Zagi the first time.**_

_**Y and E escape the capital.**_

_**Y and E go to Deidon Hold. Meet Kaufman and are sent to the supposedly cursed woods.**_

_**Y and E meet Karol, all go to Halure and fix the tree.**_

_**Y, E, and K go to Aspio. Meet Rita.**_

_**Rt takes them to Shaikos ruins. Met Me, Letha.**_

I paused. The meeting with me was the first point where, to my knowledge, reality deviated from the game. Though for all I knew there were other discrepancies that I hadn't heard about, and couldn't ask about without sounding suspicious. It hadn't seemed that way though... I shrugged and went back to my list.

_**Y gets info on blastia thief. L fell down a hole.**_

Not my finest moment. I hesitated again, feeling very conscious of the warmth from my left hand, then elected not to write down anything about the fairies. Moving on...

_**Return to Aspio, establish Rt and L will continue traveling with Y, E, and K.**_

_**Return to Halure, get note from F, then run from Knights and Assassins.**_

The list stretched on until I finally caught up with the present where we got our boat. I chewed lightly at the end of the nib pen before I started scratching out vague lines explaining "the future."

_**Encounter ghost ship. (Holy crap, does this mean ghosts are real in this world?) Get red box.**_

_**Land in Nordopolica, try to meet with the Duce, B, but be turned away.**_

_**Agree to help "Regeay." Fight in the coliseum. "Regeay" lied.**_

_**Chase "Regeay," Aer Krene in those caves (something that sounded like Weasels...) and another "dragon"**_

"_**Regeay" revealed, was there a fight here? Get red box back.**_

_**Arrive in Mantaic, that desert city.**_

_**Search the desert for P and those children's parents. Find parents but pass out before finding P.**_

That was not going to be fun. Not at all. _Craaap..._

_**Look around that illusion/memory city of the past. Meet D. Copious Mysterious Plot Points that don't make sense for a long time. Red box=Apatheia**_

_**Go back to Mantaic**_

I paused midline. Then forced myself to continue.

_**Go back to Mantaic and kill Cumore.**_

_Woohoo. Unless I get randomly abducted again, knock on wood_, I rapped my knuckles against the table_, I'll actually be there for this act of vigilantism._ Shaking my head, I wondered how I'd be able to deal with the knowledge of Yuri's cold blooded killing. Sure, I knew he killed Ragou already, but somehow that felt too distant to really be...real. Like even though I knew the game had become my reality, that scene was still something I could only picture on my lap top monitor.

But when Yuri went out to kill Cumore, I would know that was what he was doing. Heck, I might even be able to see it for myself! Would I be able to treat the swordsman the same way after that? I just didn't know... Cumore was a bastard, he deserved his fate many times over, and the chances that he'd have a change of heart were virtually non-existent. But still...

_I just don't believe anyone has the right to kill in cold blood. Even if it's for justice and to protect the lives of countless innocents. Am I being too naïve?_

I shook the thoughts from my head, and went back to my list.

The light from the window (port hole, aren't they called?) was nearly gone by the time I finished. With only my candle left I skimmed over my list to try and see if I could remember anything else. Up to the point of confronting Alexei I was sure I'd gotten all the major points. Then there was Yuri's fall, Duke being enigmatic, Yuri reuniting with everyone...and that was the point where I was a lot less confident about things.

I knew that Rita got her bright idea at some point, something that involved Apatheia, Aer Krene, and converting the Aer into mana and Entelexeia into spirits through a process I wasn't sure I'd understood even when it was happening on screen. At some point there's an epic battle against a horde of monsters where Yuri and Flynn team up, a new village made with Brave Vesperia's help, and an epic Yuri vs. Flynn battle. And the revelation that next we'd have to fight Duke and finish up with an epic cut scene defeat of the Adephagos.

But it was all fuzzy in my head, general information only. And not just because I had memory problems, I always had trouble remembering the last stretch of a video game. That's the part given more to exploring side quests and grinding levels. Major plot becomes less memorable after hours of trivial details. And the player hardly needs to know why fighting the final boss will fix everything, just that it would.

_Yeah, I really wish I could remember those details now. It would be great if I could, say, remember what exactly Duke was trying to do. 'Cause really, I just kinda filed it away as "bad shit that would result in worldwide genocide." Same old final boss stuff._

I sighed to myself. Despite the lack of detail near the end, I actually had a fairly complete outline of the game in my hands. I tore the pages out of the notebook (five pages filled front and back with writing) and went back outside to the ship's railing. After checking quickly to be sure no one was watching, I shredded the pages into tiny pieces no larger than a fingernail and tossed them all out over the water. In the dark they were lost from sight almost as soon as they left my hands.

Keeping the list would have been reassuring in the event that my memory holes began to swallow up Tales of Vesperia, but it wasn't worth the paranoia of carrying proof that I knew more than I should. Carrying my true background around was bad enough. Even though I'd written everything in Earth's writing, that sort of thing was just begging to be discovered and stab me in the back.

I stood staring at the foaming white water for a time, imagining I could see little bits of paper caught in the ship's wake.

x x x

Another difference from the game. In the game, travel on a ship can be done in a straight line. In real life, that line is anything but straight. Weather and sea currents were major factors in determining our route, Tokunaga and Wedge constantly checking their maps and charts against, I dunno, the stars and everything else a navigator checks against. Biggs seemed to be there mostly for the sake of extra muscle that knew which rope was which.

Sure, the blastia helped, but realistically it wasn't enough against the force of nature that is the ocean. It meant we wouldn't end up completely dead in the water if we hit the doldrums and lost all wind. When I got up the nerve to demonstrate my ignorance and ask about it, Tokunaga told me it also helped in various ways (that went mostly over my head) when the water got rougher during storms and the like. So basically...it wasn't impossible to sail without it, but it made everything go smoother. And sailors in this world were so accustomed to using them that sailing without a blastia was nearly unthinkable.

Taking all of this into account, and the fact that there was a lot of water between us and Nordopolica, that meant a week to a week and a half of sailing before we reached our destination. And I wasn't expecting the ghost ship to show up for a few days.

How to kill the boredom?

By killing mermen.

"I hate fish," I grumbled, slashing open the side of a shark like bipedal monster with one of my daggers. A smile, however, tugged at my lips as I remembered Tohru, the giant sumo like guy from the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon.

The daggers allowed me to get in close to the nasty sharks so that they couldn't use their heavy and sharpened anchor weapons to maximum effect. Once in close I just stabbed stabbed stabbed and tried not to get bitten with their razor chompers. Which, by the way, were three rows of teeth like a real shark.

"Aw, frick!" Those teeth managed to scrape against my arm, leaving several deep and bloody gouges. I jumped back and jabbed out with my right hand dagger, more in surprised reflex than design, and bashed the merman in the gills. The attack had a better effect than I would have thought, sending the monster reeling back and dazed long enough for Judith to finish it with Luna Fang. I took the opportunity to fall back from the fighting to let her take over for a while.

"Nurse!" My arm was bathed in a soft blue light (if I squinted and looked just right at it, the light almost looked as if it were a woman's shape) and looking around I saw similar blue lights sparkling around Yuri and Repede.

We'd actually been fighting in shifts, due to the limited space on deck combined with the fighting styles of some of our members. I had no desire to dodge getting clipped by Judith's spear only to end up with my foot getting bashed by Karol (the boy had switched to a _mace_ when I wasn't looking! When did he get that thing?). He and Estelle would sit on the side lines, occasionally casting healing artes when needed, until one of us needed a breather.

Unless we were swarmed by a particularly large group...school...of mermen Rita and Raven also traded off providing long range support. We'd boosted them on top of the cabins so that they were safely out of reach, though that was starting to seem like a bad idea. When Raven got bored, the only diversion available to him was to goad Rita. He'd been knocked off the roof by her punches three times already.

Between attacks the group talked with Kaufman about various topics the game had included for foreshadowing. Leviathan's Claw trying to steal her customers by selling them Hoplon blastia they got from an unknown source, what potential corruption that source could be indicating, Raven's little "quest for the holy grail" apatheia style... I ignored most of it in favor of scowling at my clothes.

I'd been barely keeping up with mending the stupid things, but the coat and shirt were constantly acquiring new rips and cuts. My leggings had split in a few places, and unfortunately they could only be mended so many times without making them tighter than I felt comfortable with. Interestingly, my shorts were practically undamaged with the exception of some old blood stains (which were on everything and I had no idea how to get rid of them).

_Sigh...Estelle's gonna take me shopping again, I just know it..._

A few hours later found me hunched over a pile of clothes with a sewing needle in a sheltered corner of the deck. When I had settled down to begin my mending, it had only taken a few minutes before the others realized what I was doing and had left their own torn clothing for me to fix. For the time being they were all wearing spare clothes they'd either carried in their own travel bags (we traveled light, so extra clothes were at your own discretion) or borrowed from Kaufman, her lackey, or one of the sailors.

"Need some help?" I looked up from the patch I was putting in Karol's pants to Judith.

"You know how to sew?"

"I've been on my own for a long time now. I know how to take care of myself," she smiled while sitting down on a crate next to me. Gracefully, she plucked a needle from the packet I'd left out and easily threaded it. While she started fixing the skirt of Estelle's white over-dress thing I wondered idly if Krytians had sharper eyesight.

The two of us worked in silence for awhile, no girl talk whatsoever. Not that I minded, concentrating on such a simple and familiar task filled me with a sense of content. Back home I liked sewing because it kept my hands busy and constructive while my mind was free to daydream or just watch a movie. Now I let my mind wander down fond memories of home...

So in the end it was Judith who broke the ice, "I've been wondering about something."

"Hmm?" Lacking a handy pair of scissors, I opted to cut the thread through the simple act of biting it.

"Oh, I was just curious about why you joined Brave Vesperia." Her fingers dragged the needle back and forth through Estelle's dress in small, neat stitches. "I heard that you're also looking for something, like Raven is."

"Mmm," I hummed noncommittally, knotting the thread again to use on a seam that was starting to come apart. _Talking to Judith should be safe...neither of our agendas should clash, and I don't think she'll tell anyone else._ Though they say the best way to keep a secret is to keep it secret. The more people who know increase the chances that it will get out somehow, no matter how trustworthy they are.

"Not exactly 'like Raven is'," I finally settled on. "I'm looking for something that I at least know isn't a fairy tale," I was proud of the lack of cynicism in that comment, "while for all he knows he's off on a wild goose chase." Judith made her own humming noise, though since I was concentrating on my work I missed what expression went along with it.

"But it doesn't feel right to just wander around aimlessly. I'd rather try to help people if I could, like my uncle would hope for me to do." I hadn't forgotten how when Ludwig and I parted he'd urged me to help others with the skills he'd taught me.

"So you joined the guild to feel like you were helping others."

"I guess you could say that..." _and we'll ignore the whole trying to follow a video game's plot angle for now..._

"But if you stay with the guild, do you believe you can follow both of your goals?" What was she leading up to? "What if a situation requires you sacrifice your search for the sake of the guild? Would you be able to do it?"

"Oh...well, I guess I can't really say for sure."

"Why's that?" Judith sounded surprised by my answer. Was she expecting me to say I'd put my own interests first, or to promise I'd do the right thing and put the needs of others first? I shrugged, more to myself than at her.

"I dunno. There are too many hypothetical situations that could go either way. So thinking about it now won't do any good but confuse me." I folded Karol's pants and pulled over the pink portion of Estelle's dress to lie in a heap in my lap. (It hadn't surprised me that the princess didn't know how to sew, she'd confessed having neglected embroidery as a child in favor of history lessons.) "It might just come down to which option I'll regret passing up the most."

"I see," she said, sounding like she really did get a lot more out of my wishy washy answer than I'd meant her to. But before I could really worry about that, she asked in an implicating tone, "Would you prefer to fix Yuri's shirt, or Raven's?" Then neatly moved her head to the side so that Karol's no longer folded pants flew safely by.

x x x

Fog had come in thick during the night, so the morning sun was weak even when it managed to sneak in and reach the _Fiertia_. I was hugging my arms tightly against the damp chill of the fog, trying not to let my teeth chatter. Again I tried to reassure myself that the shivers occasionally running down my spine were only because of the cold, and not because of the perfect creepy atmosphere that was going on.

_Yes I know it's the perfect setting for a ghost ship, that's exactly what I'm waiting for after all. And no, I'm not scared by that (not much at least) and if it's anything like the game at all then the "ghosts" should just be normal, killable monsters. Yeah. And we'll ignore how my brain is playing "The Kraken" from Pirates Two._

Well, at least there wouldn't be zombies.

"The fog's gotten awfully thick," Judith was peering at the fog, appearing no more bothered by the cold than if it were a mildly cooling breeze on warm day. What was that, super will power or something? Mind over matter? I wanted to learn that trick!

While I glowered jealously at the scantily clad yet unfazed krityan the others made comments about fog being a bad omen, and how saying that out loud was sure to jinx us.

"Hey! Front! I mean bow!" Rita shrilled, stumbling back a bit as if she could escape the dark shape that had just come looming up out of no where.

"Hmm... We're going to hit them," stated Judith oh so calmly as she lightly braced a hand in the nearest doorway. I quickly grabbed at the ship's rail, belatedly realizing how stupid it was to stand where I could be thrown off when I'd known we were going to crash encounter a ship.

Crash into the other ship we did. The timber groaned as it protested the force thrown against it, and there were a few nerve wracking crunches. Karol and Rita were thrown off their feet to land hard on the deck. Estelle had also been standing by the railing like me. She didn't react as quickly as I had, so was only saved from being tossed into the water by Yuri lunging forward to catch a hold of her and a rope at the same time. I wasn't in a position to see any one else, but the lack of loud splashes seemed a good sign. So did the fact that neither Biggs nor Wedge started screaming about us taking on water.

And that was from the slightest bump of the much larger ship we'd come across in the fog. That ship was massive compared to us! If it had been a direct collision at a faster speed, we'd probably just be a mess of splinters and floating bodies in the water.

"What is that...?" Kaufman breathed, stepping out of the cabin she'd been sheltering in. (That's right, the rest of us would have been in there too, but being her bodyguards and considering the high risk factor of no visuals we'd been stationed on deck to actually do our job.) "That's an old ship. I've never seen that type before..."

I sucked in a breath. The ship looked very much like something out of a pirate movie. The dark weathered look of the wood even made a comparison to the Black Pearl plausible. I had next to no clue about ship types or anything, but I did know one thing. The ghost ship looked more like something from Earth than anything else I'd seen yet. Not exactly, but so close.

"I think it says... The Atherum," Judith read from the faded lettering.

The gang planks of the ghost ship creaked, and then came slamming down onto our deck. If that wasn't a (creepy) invitation, I didn't know what was.

Rita had jumped away with a strangled yelp, and was eying the ship wildly.

"That's weird," Karol breathed, reluctant to speak any louder than a loud whisper. "There's no sign of people."

"It-it's like...it's calling to us," Estelle clasped her hands together, her expression both terrified and delighted by the prospect.

"N-no way!" Rita spun on Tokunaga, "Come on! Get the Fiertia going!"

"The ceres blastia's not responding!"

While Rita ran around in near panic, Raven adding fuel by calling the ship cursed (well...), I inched a bit closer to the waiting gangplank. _It...it shouldn't be too bad, right? I already know what's supposed to happen, and the only thing that makes this situation at all frightening is not knowing what's going to happen. And there's no creepy suspenseful soundtrack, so how bad could it be?_

Problem was that life never had a soundtrack (excluding songs you get stuck in your head) but that never stopped my imagination from crafting perfect horror scenarios before. Mild as they might have been to a hardcore horror fan, I hated giving my subconscious even the smallest opening for fear of where that would lead.

"Why don't we go take a look?" Judith suggested. "It'll be fun. I love this sort of thing."

"What?" Rita shrilled.

"Well, we don't know what's wrong with the blastia. We've gotta go take a look," Yuri laid out for her reasonably. She rocked back on her heels and grimaced as if about to argue more but realized we'd get out of this faster if she didn't.

Kaufman, however, was _not_ going to let it go uncontested. "Are you planning on just leaving the Fiertia like this?"

Yuri shrugged slightly, as if he'd been planning exactly that but knew better than to say so. "All right, why don't four of us go to investigate while the rest of us stay here and keep watch?"

I knew in the end it wouldn't matter, everyone was supposed to board sooner or later, but I chewed on my lower lip while I wondered if I should hope to be in the first or the second group?

x x x

Hahaha~ Who shall I send exploring with Yuri and Repede? I'm trying to decide who he's most likely to pick. Would he pick the people who wouldn't freak out at every little thing? Or the people he thinks would be most fun to play pranks on? And which category would he think Letha falls under? Any opinions given will be considered.

I didn't really care very much about the fight with the mermen, but I'm planning to make the most out of the next chapter for action!

Note: Letha doesn't know how Duke got Dein Nomos, but I do~ Thanks again to Frozen In Flight for that link~ You know the one!

And that was me trying to make Ioder seem more like a real person instead of a bland personality...

And lastly, a friendly moment between Letha and Judith. How fun! Another case of me not knowing what I wanted them to talk about, so I just let it take whatever direction it wanted. I can see Judith being a shipping fangirl, though I'm not sure if she'd even care which relationship she was supporting.


	31. Chapter 31: I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

Much thought went into how I'd split the groups and approach this chapter. Much thought, because now that I've settled into my new job I have plenty of time to think during slow hours when I'm not arguing with the cash register. I considered everyone's input and added it to my own thoughts on how Yuri would select a team for exploring the ghost ship. I'm rather pleased with the overall chapter, though a few people may be disappointed by my choices.

I find myself doubting that any of you have read _The Picture of Dorian _Gray (though if you have, awesome! I loved it actually). And most likely none of you will read it except maybe for a class. But I still feel I should put a spoiler warning here: I AM GIVING AWAY THE BIGGEST TWIST ABOUT THE ENDING! SPOILERRRR!1!1!

Angelic:

I hope you'll approve of how I arranged the teams. I tried to make sure it would be interesting for everyone~ And I don't know about Judith shipping YurixLetha, but I honestly can see her supporting nearly any fandom you could think of. Though the more cracked up ones would most likely be just for the sake of a laugh and to tease the involved parties. I can even imagine her getting good entertainment value out of anyone paired with herself (even if she wasn't interested romantically), if that makes sense.

x x x

Chapter 31: I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

x x x

Yuri narrowed his eyes as he looked thoughtfully at our group gathered on the _Fiertia's_ deck. "Okay. So Repede and I'll go," he settled on first. Before he could voice his next choice Rita broke in with her voice about an octave higher, making Repede whimper a bit.

"I'm not going. No way!" Her voice cracked a bit with her declaration, and she dropped to the deck to sit with her arms crossed. She looked the very image of a stubborn child refusing to budge an inch unless getting her way.

Yuri rolled his eyes a bit but maintained his neutral tone and expression. "Alright then, you stay here and help guard the _Fiertia_." Once again he scanned the rest of us, and I thought that maybe this second assessment meant he had originally planned on the bringing her along for magical support.

When his look reached Karol, the small guild boss tried to make himself unnoticeable behind me without being too obvious about it. Raven widened his eyes, shook his head slightly, and mouthed the words "No waaaay" when under silent consideration, making Yuri roll his eyes again.

"Repede and I will bring Estelle and Judy with us," he announced. Judith had a satisfied look that would have made me worry for any canaries in the vicinity, and Estelle was surprised but didn't seem overly bothered. Karol, Rita, and Raven all let out sighs of relief, which I had to shake my head at. "We'll go just as soon as you girls have everything you need."

Princess and krytian nodded at him, and went back to our shared room to get their small pouches for carrying gels into battle. Everyone else wandered off to all corners of the ship. I stayed by the railing and considered the ominous ship that seemed to be waiting patiently for us to make the next move. No matter how I stood on my toes or tried to lean closer, I couldn't spy any monsters waiting on the deck. Were they all below?

"Do you really want to check it out that bad?" came Yuri's voice from behind me. I looked at him askance and lifted an eyebrow.

"Do I really look that eager? Then why didn't you pick me?" I turned to look at him directly. "Never mind, I can guess."

"Oh?" He grinned a bit. "So why do you think I picked Estelle and Judy?"

"Estelle's the healer," I told him reasonably. With standard RPG logic, you always always _always_ keep the main healer in you party when forced to divide the group. And leave secondary healers in the other for when they're inevitably required to fight without your main fighters. Which games always do to trip up the less experienced gamers who didn't make sure both parties were balanced (Not that I'd explain that bit of reasoning to Yuri). "You don't know what could be on that ship, so keeping our main healer with you is a no brainer.

"Plus," I continued, "Estelle's no slouch with her sword. She may be the Empire's treasured princess and getting her hurt would equal a death sentence on top of all your other crimes-"

"Hey, I was pardoned," the criminal swordsman protested.

"I'm sure spiriting her away yet again has given them new reasons to maintain your wanted status," I said with a snort. "But anyway, that's not likely to happen since not only can she take care of herself, but she also has you, Repede, and Judith to protect her. Which leads into why I think you picked Judy," I nodded sagely.

"Judith is both an incredibly strong fighter, and almost obscenely calm about this whole situation. Which means she won't be as much as a potential liability as," I waved a hand vaguely over at Karol, Rita, and Raven, "the scaredy cat faction of our group." Yuri laughed softly at my assessment of the other members.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it, though you have a weird way of putting it." _Well of course, it was a bastardized blend of gaming logic, writing logic, and maybe a dash of sound strategic sense_. "That's also why I want you to stay here with the others."

"Come again?"

Yuri shrugged slightly, "Karol's the boss now, but he won't be able to make calm decisions under pressure if he's scared. And I can't count on Rita or the old man to do that either. You seem the least effected by this sort of thing," and I could almost hear the 'besides Judith' omitted from that line, "and you think things through. Most of the time," he amended with a smirk, and I winced a bit at the reminder of all the times when I'd been a reckless 'trouble magnet'.

"Also," Yuri glanced around briefly to make sure no one could overhear, "I want you to keep an eye on the old man for me."

"So you don't trust him," I concluded. Then it occurred to me that Yuri asking _me_ to watch Raven also meant that he considered me trustworthy. _Well, he already knows the gist of Judith's biggest secret even if he doesn't know why she destroys blastia. And I've told him what is supposedly my life's story. Raven's the only one who hasn't thrown him a bone to gnaw on_.

"The old man is up to something," Yuri frowned, folding his arms across his chest while looking back over at the archer. "He says Whitehorse sent him and even has that letter, but that doesn't mean he's told us everything. Besides," he returned his attention to me, "weren't you the one who said 'Humans are deceitful, and letters don't have problems with lying' back when Flynn was framed?"

"So I did," I mused, surprised that Yuri had remembered that. I didn't clearly remember the conversation, but it definitely sounded like something I'd say. "But if you're worried about what he might do, why don't you bring him on the _Atherum_ where you can watch him?"

"I have my reasons." And that was all he would say on the matter. Moments later Estelle and Judith approached us with weapons in hand, and then the four of them boarded the ghost ship for their expedition.

x x x

"-And to his shock, now the painting showed him standing in a pool of blood, a still dripping knife clutched tightly in his withered hand."

"I told you to stop already!" Rita wailed, frustrated by her powerlessness to stop my compressed and somewhat edited recounting of Oscar Wilde's _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Earlier when I began describing the first changes to Dorian's portrait, she'd threatened to punch me. When I continued she tried to follow up but found I kept sidestepping her with ease. Fed up with me staying out of her reach, she'd been about to throw a fireball at me when Tokunaga, Biggs, and Wedge all stopped her with a warning that if the ship burned we'd have no where to run except the _Atherum_.

So she and Karol were both pressing their hands to their ears in an attempt to block out the increasingly disturbing nature of the gothic horror story. I felt a bit guilty at intentionally trying to scare them before we had to investigate the mysterious ship, but they'd asked for a story and without Estelle I couldn't continue _The Hobbit_. I didn't think _Dorian Gray_ was that bad, I was even giving them a shorter version that skipped over all the philosophical talk and extensive descriptions.

"Aw, but it gets even better!" I turned to Raven. "_You_ want to hear how it ends, don't you Raven?" The archer jumped a bit as I put him on the spot.

"S-sure I do," he stammered, pretending that the story hadn't bothered him. "But maybe ya could tell it some other-" But I launched back into the story, telling about how Dorian disposed of the body and left to spend some time in the country. While there, he resolved to abandon his hedonistic ways, but upon returning to his mansion the portrait reflected his soul as even more twisted and vile than before.

"Seeing this made him question if his repentance wasn't wholly sincere. Was it simply his selfish desire to be free of his sins and not honest intent to become a good person? It was the final push needed to drive him into madness. Dorian took the knife still in the room, that same knife he'd murdered his own good friend with," I paused dramatically, one of my own daggers in my hand. My audience of three leaned forward expectantly despite themselves. "And with it he slashed the cursed painting!" I cut the air in front of me viciously, and they jumped slightly at the sudden movement.

"Throughout the house the servants all heard a terrible scream. They rushed to the room their master always kept locked and inside they found a very old and deformed man lying dead upon the floor. Upon inspection of his clothes and rings they realized it was their master, Dorian Gray himself, though no longer the angelically beautiful and forever youthful looking man they'd known. On the wall was a painting of him, as handsome as anyone had ever known him in life.

"And that's the end!" I chirped cheerfully.

"Damn Letha, ya really do know some weird stories," Raven said with a shaky laugh.

"I-it was ridiculous," Rita protested, "Something like that could never happen. It just isn't possible for a normal painting to suddenly start changing like that, or for someone to never grow older!"

"Well they say to be careful what you wish for," I said with an airy wave of my hand. "Isn't that right Ace? ...Ace?"

"I think you broke the kid," Raven commented, poking at the shivering boy who was clutching his knees close.

"Oh wow...I really didn't think he'd take it that bad," I said with some remorse. Feeling obligated to try and make up for it, I crouched down to be on eye level with Karol. "Umm, Ace? You know it wasn't real, right?"

"I-it isn't?" He looked up at me with a pitiful expression.

"O-of course it isn't!" Rita said a bit louder than necessary. "Only an idiot would believe that was real even for a second!"

"Uh yeah, sure. Don't worry, I made it all up," I lied. A nice little white lie, in another world where there'd be no one to bash me for copyright and plagiarism. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah! I'm just fine." He raised his head a bit higher, and then his eyes widened so much I could see a clear ring of white around the irises. "Look at that...!" From behind me there was a splintering crack. I twisted around on my heels in time to see the mast of the _Atherum_ had broken at it's midpoint, the top coming down to land point first on top of the layered levels of cabins with a deafening crash.

"Oh my...what happened?" Kaufman had come bursting out of the _Fiertia's_ cabin at the noise. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the state of the ship, her nameless lackey bumping into her from behind. "I can't believe the mast would suddenly collapse like that..."

"Are you all okay?" asked Tokunaga, who had come from the back of the ship to make sure we were unharmed up in the bow (sporadic knowledge of boat terms...).

"We're fine, but..." Karol turned to flash a worried look at the larger ship. "I hope Yuri and the others are okay..."

"I'd be surprised if they came out of an impact like that without a few scratches," Kaufman pointed out, sounding more matter of fact about it than was tactful.

I chewed on my lower lip while considering the broken mast. Game plot aside, considering the situation realistically it wouldn't be surprising if the shock from the massive piece of wood falling had caused something inside the ship to break and even collapse on our friends. And ghostly curses aside, such an old ship was literally falling apart on the water. On Earth such a structure would be off limits and probably demolished to prevent accidents.

It was potentially a floating death trap. And now that I'd started thinking about that, I was deathly afraid for my friends inside.

"Let's go check on them." Everyone stared at me and I rushed to defend my proposal, "If anything bad happened they have no way of letting us know they need help. They could be trapped inside and waiting for us to come save them." _Or hurt badly and unable to help themselves_. The others were probably having similar thoughts, though none of us wanted to say it out loud. Karol and Rita looked downright sick at the prospect of boarding, but nodded in grim support.

"Now, hold on just a second," Kaufman walked right up to speak to me face to face. She was a few inches taller than me, so this gave her a bit of an advantage in a direct confrontation. "Who'll protect the ship while you're gone?"

"It is Brave Vesperia's job..." Karol admitted, sounding torn between relief at the argument to stay on the _Fiertia_ and the need to check on his friends. _Hmm, dialogue is definitely different from the game_.

According to the game Karol would argue that there weren't enough people to protect the ship properly. A load of bull. A team of three is barely a handicap in a game, and I made it four. And with that argument then why hadn't the whole group boarded the _Atherum_ together to begin with? Neither did it make sense how they all essentially abandoned their client midway through the job. Or how easily she just let them go do their own thing.

Though I suddenly no longer cared about the logical points I'd griped about when it was all just pixels and electricity.

"How about this then," I tried, thinking fast on my feet. "We've already established that the most likely reason the ceres blastia isn't working is because this," I indicated the ship looming behind us, "showed up and won't stop hanging around us. Now we have no way of being sure the others are in any condition to do something about it, so unless we send someone else to check on them there's no telling how long we could be stranded here."

Kaufman's lips pressed together and her brown eyes narrowed as she considered my argument. Not wanting to give her an opening for a counter argument I barreled on ahead. "And the president of a merchant guild like yours would never pass up such a golden opportunity so easily."

"Opportunity?" she said sceptically, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, such an old ship is bound to have something valuable on it. Some authentic, one of a kind antique or other lost treasure. It happens all the time, doesn't it? Ship goes missing, and people write off its cargo as lost to the sea?"

"So you're saying you'll find one of these treasures and bring it back." I had her. "I guess we can do without bodyguards for a short period..." She planted her hands on her hips and gave us a commanding look, "But you all be sure to come back quick. And," her voice and eyes actually softened a bit, "everyone, be careful."

So I led the second boarding team up the gangplank, hearing her admonishment to Tokunaga to talk about something fun as the _Atherum's_ deck creaked under my foot.

x x x

_**I'll Save Them**_

_Karol: I'm pretty nervous, but I'd feel awful if anything happened to the others. We have to go save them. A-all right, let's do this!_

_**Oooh, When I Find Them...**_

_Rita: They insisted on going to go play on the creepy boat, so here I am stuck going after them. When I find them, ooh, they're gonna wish they had died._

_**Better To Be Safe**_

_Letha: Nothing bad was supposed to happen yet, right? I-I'm sure I'm worried over nothing. They're all perfectly capable of looking after themselves. But...it's better to check on them anyway, just in case._

_**What a Pain**_

_Raven: Oh man, what a pain. I don't wanna do this... I mean, they'll come out on their own eventually, right? Whoa, what was that? Man, there's somethin' spooky in the air around here._

x x x

It was with bitter amusement that I noted all three of them tried to stay behind me. Raven at least wasn't obvious about it, putting on a brave front for his macho man image. The one that existed only in his head. I was reminded that if you put him on Yuri's team there's supposed to be a skit where he tells the swordsman that you're supposed to bring a girl to spooky places and be all, "Never fear kitten, daddy's right here~"

Just remembering that made me laugh a bit, the others jumping at the sudden sound. I rolled my eyes a bit, "Oh come on you guys, I haven't even been making idle banter about crazy axe murderers or people making s'mores out of particular male body parts."

"Wh-_at?_" Rita shrieked in my ear, making me wince. And Raven was definitely wincing, though not because of Rita.

"Umm, pretend I didn't say that?" The mage just glared at me. Despite her disgust with my attitude, she and Karol continued to stay practically glued to my back. If I'd been alone, I'd probably have been scaring myself silly with my own what-if imaginings. If I'd been with someone totally unafraid, I'd have emotionally (but not physically at least, I have that much pride) latched onto them for reassurance.

But finding myself leading around a bunch of big scaredy cats with the role of leader dumped on me kept me too busy to get properly scared.

I led them around the deck, trying each of the doors in an attempt to get inside the ship. Each one was locked. This discovery made me frown as I considered the implications. _I don't remember exactly how exploring the ship is supposed to go, but I'm positive Yuri and the others went through one of these doors. So at least one should be unlocked. Them locking it would be pointless so..._

I looked up at the fallen half of the mast, where it was propped up against its lower half and the roofs of the cabins._ So maybe that thing did cause some structural damage inside when it fell, warping the wood or damaging the frame or something._ The hypothetical thought of poltergeists and curses brushed through my mind, but I stubbornly shoved it away.

"H-hey. There's a ladder over there, maybe we could use that?" Karol pointed out the ladder attached to a platform midway up the mast. It had been broken off about four feet from the deck. Raven knelt down and formed a stirrup with his cupped hands. "Huh? Why are you doing that?"

"He's gonna give you guys a boost," I explained, figuring it out from something similar that flickered briefly in my memories. Something to do with...washing our trailer?

I shook the thought from my head as unrelated while Raven said, "You better go first Rita since yer the lightest."

"What? Why can't you make the runt go first?"

"Because," I sighed, "he'll be weighed down by his bag and mace. If you go up and think that the ladder doesn't seem like it will hold your weight at any point, you can just come back down. If _he_ goes up and it isn't safe, he probably won't figure that out until he's halfway back down."

"W-what?" Karol squeaked. _I seem to be hearing that word a lot today_.

After a bit more coaxing, we managed to convince Rita to climb the ladder. She went slowly, carefully testing each rung to make sure it would hold her weight. Once she reached the platform the mage waved at us to show it was clear. Meaning Raven and I had to convince Karol to climb. That was even harder, and I'm not sure he opened his eyes at any point before he reached the top.

"Yer turn Letha. But how's old Raven gonna get up?"

"Umm..." I looked around but didn't see anything he could use as a stepping stool. So I shrugged at him, "I hope you have good upper body strength?"

"Would ya like ta find how good some time?" he waggled his eyebrows at me.

"Being a perv isn't going to get you out of doing pull ups."

"Drat." He boosted me up and while climbing I thought drily, _This is solid good proof of why a woman shouldn't wear a skirt when she goes adventuring_. I considered dropping one of my boots on Raven's face to wipe off that lopsided grin.

And oh how fun it was to walk along the broken upper half of the mast like a weathered balance beam. I was grateful that there was very little of a breeze at that height, so I didn't have to fear any sudden gusts knocking me off. _Caaareful...just like walking on dead trees behind the house back home...except those dead trees were only two or three feet off the ground at most._

Honestly, I didn't get far before I had to crawl backwards down the slanted mast like some squirrel on reverse. Who cares how retarded that looked, I'd rather be a squirrel than a pancake! We reached the roofs of the top level of cabins, and jumped down to the doors that had been out of our reach on the main deck.

I still had not seen a single monster on the ship. That was actually spookier to me than the thought of ghosts, though I tried to tell myself it made sense. _Of course monsters wouldn't actually live on a ship...the only monsters out here would have to be of aquatic nature, and they'd have a better advantage hunting in the water. And why make a nest on a ship if there's nothing living left-_ I abruptly cut of that thread, not wanting to make the jump from living to undead.

_Dammit, too late_.

I grit my teeth and tried the door knob. At first it wouldn't turn, but then if felt like there was a soft _click_ and it turned in my hand easily. I hesitated, then practically threw the door open, immediately dropping my hands to my daggers. The door flew inward and banged hard against the inside wall of the cabin, shuddering from the force.

But there was nothing on the other side.

I stuck my head through, looking left and right (and then up as an afterthought) but didn't see anything other than rotting furniture and gaping holes in the floor boards. Entering completely, I frowned at my lack of discovery. Had I imagined the door unlocking in my hand? Maybe it was just a trick of the door jamb, or...

_Hypothetical what-ifs aren't important. Let's find the others, find the clear ciel crystal, and get the hell out of here_. I didn't really plan to look for any present for Kaufman too hard. I was sure she'd be just as satisfied with leaving the S.S. Spooky behind.

I found myself leading the others around again like a mother duck and her ducklings. Or like Final Fantasy VIII, where no matter what you did your teammates would follow your movements down to the smallest step, including running in random zig zags and circles.

Grinning a bit, I pulled open another door and found myself staring into a much toothier grin.

"_Meep!_" I meeped as I reflexively slammed the door in the grinner's face.

"What was that?" I wasn't sure who it was that spoke, and didn't much care since I was suddenly very interested in leaning all my weight against that door to keep it shut!

"I saw a skull!" I squawked as the door shuddered under my hands. "I didn't wait to see anything else!" The door shuddered again, and then Raven was beside me adding his own weight.

"Any ideas?" he asked me urgently.

"Some, but they involve letting it in here."

"I don't like those ideas."

I ignored him. "Rita, we're going to open the door at your signal and get the hell out of your way. I don't care what spell you use, as long as it doesn't set things on fire!" I heard a rustling that may have been her preparing her scroll.

"O frozen blade, fly sharply across the heavens!" Raven and I jumped to either side of the door, letting the grinning whatever force its way through. "Freeze Lancer!" The skeleton and two more that had queued up behind it stumbled right into Rita's spell, all three getting skewered on the massive icicle that suddenly shot through the door at them. They grabbed and scratched futilely at the ice for a few seconds before several more frozen spears followed the first. By the time the spell had finished, they were nothing more than a pile of splintered bones and moldering rags covered with melting chips of ice.

"Are they any more?" Karol squeaked, spiked mace gripped tightly in his hands. I cautiously peeked through the door again.

"I don't see any." Just as I let myself relax, something gripped my ankle and yanked my foot out from under me. Crashing to the floor hard, a whoosh of air flew out from my lungs, and for a moment all I could do was gasp as something started dragging me backwards. I looked back to see another skeleton had climbed up through one of the holes in the floor. He was half up, and grinned mockingly at me while his bony grasp tightened painfully enough for me to feel through my boot. I could see more skeletons pulling themselves up through the other holes in the floor, and others were swarming through the door from the room that I could have sworn was empty.

"Hey! Let go!" I tried to kick off the one holding my foot, and to my horrified fascination succeeded in breaking its arm off. The severed arm continued to cling to my ankle, and even shifted its grip a bit completely independent of its body. Without thinking I ripped it off and flung it across the room. There was a clatter followed by a scratching and clicking sound, and a moment later I saw it dragging itself back out from the shadows by its fingers.

Meanwhile Karol had gone berserk with his mace, smashing everything in his reach. Some of the broken off pieces kept moving and others just lay motionless. But most got powdered enough that any skeleton he bashed was staying down one way or another.

Raven and Rita weren't having as much luck. The restricted space inside the ship's cabin rendered both his arrows and many of his artes useless or dangerous to friend and foe alike. The archer had to rely solely on using his odd bow's bladed ends and a small dagger to defend himself.

The problem of friendly fire went double for Rita, though she barely had any time for casting anyway. Certainly nothing powerful, she had to settle for a few weak Stone Blast and Stalagmite spells if she wanted to cause damage. Most of the time she just used Champagne and Splash. The water would flow right through the skeletons' bones, but at least the spells served to push them back and keep the undead monsters from overwhelming her.

I was fighting with my dao rather than my daggers, though I was using it more like a club as I bashed at the one armed skeleton trying to jump me again. Stabbing and slashing at a skeleton is pretty pointless after all. One wild swing knocked its head off and sent the skull flying to ricochet off another approaching skeleton. I took advantage of this as both skeletons were forced back a step, sweeping my dao up to throw a Star Stroke at them.

The one armed headless skeleton was reduced to a pile of bones, but the other one wasn't struck as hard and only stumbled back again. I jumped forward and brought my dao down on it in an especially heavy Afterimage attack, the blade biting into the floor and getting stuck but at least the skeleton finally fell apart.

"Dammit, come _on!_" I growled as I tried to yank my dao out of the floor with both hands. Thanks to the aer infused with the attack the blade was well buried in the wood. "Come on alrea-_ow!_" I stomped down hard on the skull I'd knocked off a minute ago, smashing it into small chunks and white powder. "Damn ankle-biter!"

Then the bones still scattered around me from the last skeleton I fought decided they weren't done yet. And the severed arm had rejoined the fight. I discovered this when three disembodied arms started clawing at my legs and hands (that were in their reach thanks to still being occupied with pulling a sword out of the floor). Those finger bones were sharp! They left nasty scratches and gouges up the length of my arms and even tore through the thin leather of my gloves.

"Punishing Aid Smash!" A bag whizzed by, sweeping two of the arms off and then smashing into the floor next to me. A golden light spread out from the bag, and I felt the pain from the bones' assault fade again. Finally yanking the dao out of the floor, I shook off the last arm as I stood up and then ground it into the floor with my heel. I nodded my thanks to Karol, who fortunately had managed to work off some of his initial fear and was thinking strategically.

His weapon and artes were the best suited to the fight at hand, and he was taking the lion's share of the work. Though his pale face was an indicator that he didn't much like the role. Fortunately there were only two left, and 'lion's share' became a literal description as he finished them off with Punishing Beast Flash. As I took the chance for a breather I wondered why the aer took the shape of a lion's head for that attack.

Surveying the room, it was hard to say how many skeletons we defeated. Once 'dead' their bones all got mixed together so we couldn't count the bodies. I grimaced at the mess, then looked at them a bit more thoughtfully. "Hey, guys? Would any of you find it disturbing if I were to keep one of these skulls?" My query was met with silence which prompted me to look back and see if they'd even heard me.

The looks on their faces said that yes they had, and yes they found it disturbing. "Why would you even think of something like that?" Rita asked in disgust.

"Ya have some pretty weird hobbies," Raven agreed.

"What?" I became defensive. "It's to help me practice anatomy in painting!" One of my favorite things to challenge myself with back home was painting skulls and skeletons. The results were always neat and popular among my friends, and also served to help with painting flesh and blood people.

"Whatever you say..." That seemed to be an unspoken decision to drop it, and we probably would have just moved on and continued our search for Yuri's group if Raven hadn't noticed something.

"Hey Letha, what's wrong with yer hand?"

"Huh?" I held out both of my hands and looked them over. "They seem fine to me."

"Your hand is glowing!" ..._There is something seriously wrong when a person actually gets used to and forgets the warm glowing spot on their hand_. As Karol had brought to my attention, the Nevi's mark was still glowing thanks to the heirloom piece I'd picked up in Torim. In hindsight, I probably should have left that back on the _Fiertia_, but I was rather nervous about leaving it anywhere I couldn't keep an eye on it. For the time being I had even tucked the piece into my right boot for safe keeping.

But during the fight my gloves had been well ripped so the orange-red light spilled through freely. Deciding trying to hide it would be pointless, I pulled the glove off so they could see clearly that the light came from the tattoo.

"What in the..." Raven stared at my hand. He seemed further confused when Rita and Karol made understanding noises.

"That's right, you told us about this once," the mage recalled.

"She did? Mind fillin' old Raven in?"

"Maybe later," I stalled while slipping the tattered glove back on. It wasn't much help any more, but it did block some of the light. "Right now we should concentrate on what we came here for."

"Right," Karol said decisively, "we still have a job to do." I couldn't help giving the boy a quick once over, almost expecting to see some external sign of the backbone he'd started growing. _I guess being guild boss is doing him some good after all. He's starting to mature nicely_. Then I realized all three of them were looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to go through the door first so that they could follow my lead.

"Oh, for the love of..." I huffed and stormed through the door, refusing to look at the group sheepishly tagging along behind.

The next room was virtually empty excepting a few stray boxes and tall mirrors lining one of the walls (odd thing on a ship...were the skeletons a ballet troop or something?). Again I wondered how I could have possibly missed the skeletons when I'd looked in before. Seeing no reason to linger we ascended the stairs at the other end of the room.

At the top of the stairs was another door. Before opening it I pressed my ear up against the wood, careful not to rattle the door and give us away to anything on the other side. All I could hear was the familiar creaking of the ship, but that didn't entirely reassure me. With a look at the others, wordlessly telling them to be ready, I pushed the door open slowly and peeked through. Still nothing.

More reassured, I let the door swing open fully to reveal a room much like the last, and utterly skeleton free. Raven was actually the first to go in. Perhaps it had occurred to him that having me in point position was hurting his manly lady killer image, and was taking advantage of the familiar layout to act more confidently. Not minding who they followed as long as they weren't in the lead, Karol and Rita went in next.

But I lingered at the door, looking back down the stairs. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had overlooked something...

"Hey!" Rita's shout was the only warning I had before the door slammed shut. I grabbed at the handle, but it only rattled uselessly in my hand and refused to turn. Finally I had to give up and face it: I was locked out of the room and alone.

"Are you okay?" Karol called through the door.

"Yeah, but I don't think we're going to get this door open any time soon."

"Why don't we just bust it down?"

I shook my head even though they couldn't see me. "Probably not safe. If we damage the door or the frame it might ruin the support and make the ceiling come down on us. This place isn't sound enough to risk it."

"I guess ya'll have to find another way, or jes' wait fer us back on the _Fiertia_."

"I..." a pause to think about it, "I guess I'll go back to the _Fiertia_. I want to check on the others, but having three groups wandering around isn't a good idea. Especially if I'm on my own." _Otherwise we'll keep splintering into smaller and smaller groups trying to find each other, and that'll put us all in more danger_.

"Alright, we'll see ya back on the ship."

"Be careful going back, okay?"

"Yeah, I will."

I trooped back down the stairs and through the room we'd just been in. Part of me was disappointed, but I wasn't at all adverse to getting off the creepy ship. It was ten times worse without the others around. Little sounds I would have dismissed before took on sinister meaning, and sounds I would have explained away as being caused by one of the others poking around behind me became mysterious. I found my head whipping around from side to side trying to see everything at once.

Trying to calm myself with deep breaths, I passed through the mirror room back into the one with holes in the floor and bones lying everywhere. Except not all the bones were lying around anymore.

Too my horror, the skeletons were reassembling themselves before my eyes, some already complete and standing. Several couldn't put themselves back together entirely since their bones were no more than extra dust in the room, but a missing ribcage or shoulder wasn't going to deter them. Slowly, they all turned towards me.

"Oh God..." Behind me was a dead end, and they were between me and the door that led outside onto the decks. And there were far too many for me to take on myself. As the first lurched towards me I took the only alternative route I could think of.

I jumped down one of the rotting holes in the floor.

x x x

Sooo, I made a few changes. Yup. Because I think it's more fun this way, and makes a bit more sense. You know, I thought this would only take one chapter, but I guess I was having too much fun with it!

Kept going back to tweak the beginning of the fight. If there are any choppy parts, that might be why. I really wish I owned the game, jumping around sites and youtube clips just aren't the same when trying to really understand how a game's fighting system works...


	32. Chapter 32: Insert Zombie Joke Here

You all should have seen me. Sitting on my bed, papers with scribbles everywhere, trying to map out and reconcile the routes the two teams took in the videos. Seems I made a slight fumble in the ship's layout last chapter, but not one that would really effect the story at all. But I swear this doesn't match up! Where you stop playing as Yuri's team, and where Karol and the others meet up with him again? I can't figure out how he got his team from point A to point B in that time off screen! They couldn't have back tracked at all, so that couldn't have been the same room, and that stair was broken off, and there couldn't be another level fitted into it... *Trails off into a rant*

So I magicked a room into one of the blank spaces and pretended that room had a door that leads into the room where you find them again. There are still blank spaces on my map that can't possible be filled by any of the rooms either group has access to! This ship is scarier than it seems!

Wheee. And most of that effort was useless anyway. I shall blame the fairies. Stupid Fairies...

Letha: Sylph gained the title of Inept Cartographer...

Sylph: Silence! Or next time I drop you through a hole you'll end up in limbo!

And hey, here's a shocker. Jeanne (from the costume shop) is tied with Nevi for second place in my original character popularity poll. I did _not_ see that coming. You know, maybe I should make a schedule where I close a popularity poll and start a new one at the start of every month.

Angelic:

Well, now, I _can't_ see that, so I suppose you're going to have to draw it for me. *hint hint* Well, joking aside...do we do anything besides joke? Here's a joke, review now and get your own, glow in the dark tattoo today! And now let's go torment the poor girl some more, shall we?

x x x

Chapter 32: Insert Zombie Joke Here

x x x

Unable to see the ground in the dark, I didn't bend my knees soon enough to absorb the shock of landing. The abrupt stop jarred my legs so that I stumbled and fell forwards onto my knees and palms. Cold water splashed up all over my legs and arms. Hissing in pain, I pushed myself upright and nearly fell over again. My legs felt wobbly and couldn't support my weight. But they didn't hurt badly enough to be broken or anything, so in a moment I'd probably be fine.

The clicking and scratching noises from above reminded me that I didn't have that moment to spare. I could imagine the reforming skeletons on the upper floor all getting ready to jump down after me. Groaning with each step, I sloshed forward painfully through the shin deep water. I had to go with my hands out in front of me so I wouldn't bump into anything in the dark.

Orange light was still coming off of my left hand, so once my eyes adjusted I could see somewhat. Just in time to duck my head down to avoid knocking it against a sudden dip in the roof. The blurry shapes I could make out gave me an impression of a very cramped place where the only empty space to move around in stretched darkly ahead of me. _What the heck? Just great, I've gotten myself totally lost_...

Splashing from behind me prevented me from wallowing in my misery for long. Since I knew I wouldn't like anything back the way I'd come I had to keep moving forward. Stooped over, I continued slogging forward.

"_Hiiie!_" I squeaked when something slithered around my ankles. Whatever it was lost interest in the warmblooded intruder and slipped away again. I shivered from the cold, mounting fear, and adrenaline that was pumping through my system. Hyper aware of the oncoming splashes behind me, I tried to hurry forward and ignore the occasional brush of something underwater.

I could have cried tears of relief when I noticed a lightening in the darkness a few feet ahead. But when I reached that not-quite-as-dark area my relief swiftly morphed into frustration. The light was filtering down through a grate in the ceiling.

Glancing behind me without expecting to see anything, I felt the blood drain from my face when I realized I could make out pale figures approaching. They were closer than I had thought! Trying not to panic I whipped back around and gave the grate in the ceiling a closer inspection, running my hands over the metal to augment my limited sight.

While at one time it might have been impossible for anyone but the Hulk or Superman to even bend the securely bolted bars, time and water had done their job. The metal was completely rusted through, flakes falling off onto my face and shoulders at the slightest touch.

I wrapped my hands around the bars and pulled hard enough that I even lifted my feet off the floor and out of the water. The metal bars groaned under the pressure of my weight. I grunted a bit and tried to eke out just a little more...

There was a reddish flash of light from just behind my vision and a sudden surge of extra strength through my arms. It caught me by surprise, so when the rusted bars snapped I fell back into the water and the broken grate landed on me. For a moment I just lay in the cold water staring blankly at the hole in the ceiling before the still oncoming splashing footsteps jolted me back upright.

Flinging the grate off to the side to sink beneath the water, I crouched down and then launched myself into the air. Thanks to how low the ceiling was, I was able to get a good grip and pull myself up to brace my weight with my elbows on the lip of the hole. Horribly, my mind filled with images of the skeletons grabbing my legs and waist to drag me back down. This goaded me into swinging my legs around while pulling frantically with my forearms in order to climb up out of that hole as quick as possible. It was probably my imagination but I could have sworn I felt something clip the toe of my boot before I pulled it out of the hole.

Safe for the moment, I sprawled next to the hole and lay panting. "Where's...Captain...Jack Sparrow...when you need him?" I wheezed a laugh. Once I caught my breath and my heart stopped trying to bust its way out of my chest I propped myself up on my elbows to look around.

From the wall behind me I could hear the rhythmic sound of waves, so that was probably the side of the ship. The opposite wall was lined with mirrors, which still struck me as odd and pretty impractical on a ship (_what did they do in a storm? What if all the mirrors broke?)_. Both of the other walls had a single wall each. But what claimed the most of my attention was the stairway in the center of the room.

_...Do I actually know where I am?_ I could remember that there were a few flights of stairs, and at the top was the captain's cabin, the clear ciel crystal (still in its box) and a mirror that ghost themed monsters came out of. _Huh. Maybe I'm not as lost as I thought. But the real question is: do I know the fastest way out?_

I had three viable choices (back down through the floor was a fourth, but I wasn't mad enough to try that). I could try either of the doors or I could go up the stairs.

_Hrrrm_, I eyed the stairs,_ there's only one flight of ascending stairs, none going down, so I'm probably only halfway, maybe even less, through the route the first group takes. I'm pretty sure that got blocked off somehow so that'll be a dead end._ That left the doors.

I looked between them for a few moments and eventually decided with a shrug that the fastest way to choose the one likely to lead out would be to look through one. Choosing the closest door, I swung it open and stepped inside.

It was filled with dust covered chests and shelves that sagged under the heavy burden of age. A large mirror was hung on one of the walls (again...) and the floor was covered in a mess of unidentifiable curios that had probably been neatly arranged on the shelves at one point in time. There was no other door.

I sighed in disappointment, but at least the process of elimination meant the other door should lead to the way out. _Hmm, while I'm here, maybe I'll take a quick look and see if there's anything that'll appease Kaufman's merchant heart_. So thinking I took another step into the room, and came to a faltering stop when I felt a sudden heat in my foot.

"What?" I gasped aloud. I sat on a chest (ignoring the cloud of dust that flew up around me) and yanked my boot off. The piece of the heirloom I had tucked in there dropped out and clattered as it hit the floor, rolling a way before it stopped on its own. I didn't pick it up right away, only able to stare at it.

The vine like tracery around the silver rod was glowing a soft orange, and the polished gems on the ends were glinting as if there were sparks of light captured inside them. Gingerly, I reached out and picked it up with my right hand.

It was warm to the touch, energy thrumming through it like a living pulse. And the light from the tattoo, I noticed for the first time, was shining brighter than it had before, blue and white because I'd brought the piece I'd been keeping closer to it. I experimentally brought the piece in my right hand even closer, but there was no change.

Pausing first to put my boot on again, I stood with heirloom piece cradled in one hand and my other held out where I could see any changes. Slowly I stepped forward, deeper into the room, and both the heirloom and my hand glowed brighter in response. I also bit down on my lip to keep from crying out at the extra surge of heat in my hand beyond what I'd grown used to.

When my hand felt like someone had nailed a still burning coal into it and was shining bright as an LED flashlight, the light from the heirloom turned a corresponding though weaker blue and white. In front of me was a chest with a heavy lock on it. I slipped the heirloom piece back into my boot and drew one of my daggers.

Once I smashed the lock with the pommel of my dagger a few times, it broke and fell to the floor with a heavy clunk. Putting my somewhat battered dagger away, I found myself hesitating before opening it. _If there really is another piece inside, what does that mean? The pieces react to each other? So is there a connection to Nevi's mark besides its properties as a radar? And why haven't any of the other pieces glowed before?_ I pushed the lid open and looked inside.

The chest was filled with folds of cloth. Rolling my eyes a bit at the build up and anticlimax, I started pulling out the material and setting it aside. I'd half emptied the chest when something fell out of a bundle of silk and landed on the ground with a clatter. When I located it I was both excited and troubled to see that it _was_ another piece of the heirloom, and that it was glowing blue and white. The gems on the ends were an egg shaped emerald and a classically cut diamond, both shining as if with an inner fire.

Again I stared at the piece on the floor, my hands idly twisting the silk it had fallen out of. When I realized what I was doing I frowned at it. It was a rich shade of burgundy wine with delicate threads of black and silver weaving patterns like abstract flowers and clouds through it. With a shrug, I wrapped it around my neck like a scarf.

The brief distraction calmed me slightly, and I was able to pick up the heirloom piece (right handed again) without any outward sign that anything was wrong. Just as I held it in my hand, I heard a familiar clicking noise. Dread surged through me, and I wildly spun around to find the source.

It was the mirror, even as I watched skeletons stepped down from the glass surface and approached me menacingly. And unlike in the fight before, I could see their reflections in the mirror. Pale blurs, like dusty smears in the glass, swarmed all over each skeleton. The reflections of some of the skeletons were almost completely obscured by the white things covering them. But these blurs were visible only in the mirrors, the solid skeletons looked entirely alone.

Whatever this meant revelation I knew I was no match for the increasing force of animated dead and ran for the door. But the room beyond had already filled with skeletons without me noticing, and my eyes flew to look at the mirror in horror. _Oh God_, I thought as I noticed many of the skeletons had smashed ribcages or other familiar damages, _are the whatever-they-are are moving them through the mirrors?_

I backed into a wall and stared wild eyed around me, searching frantically for an escape. But there was no way open to me. I was cornered and they were only feet away, reaching out for me with their bony hands clawing at the air, the white of their bones exaggerated by the light from my hand.

"No!" Falling into a crouch I threw up my arms to cover my head, forgetting the heirloom piece still in my hand. Everything happened at once

The edge of the diamond scraped across the back of my left hand, and suddenly the light turned orange again. Bare seconds later there was a surprised grunt followed by a clattering and rattling as if someone had knocked over a display of brooms and rakes. Or, it turned out, like over a dozen moving skeletons suddenly all losing their animation and dropping to the floor. I could only stare at the haphazard mess of bones strewn everywhere before raising my gaze to stare incredulously at my savior.

It was Nevi, his back to me so that all I could see was his rigid spine and spread wings. They practically quivered while throwing of angry red and gold sparks.

"This one is mine," he stated coldly, his voice uncompromising. "Interfere again and I shall erase your very existences from the netherworld." I gulped, for once not finding anything remotely funny about the undersized fairy narcissist. He wasn't bluffing.

Looking over at the mirror again, I saw Nevi reflected along with the pale blurs that had been moving the skeletons. He stood with his arms crossed, expression thunderous, and they milled before him on ground level. Or were they...writhing in pain?

"_Do I make myself clear?_" The air was filled with a hissing noise, which I took to be the blurs answering him. His wings sparked again, and in the mirror's reflection I saw the blurs flattened to the ground, causing the hissing to rise in pitch like a scream. Then it seemed Nevi released them, as they slowly drifted back up in the air before shooting away in all directions. Though they all avoided passing anywhere near the fairy or where I sat weakly on the floor.

Alone now in the room, Nevi turned to look down at me with a sneer. "Pathetic wretch, can you not even handle weaklings like these on your own?"

"They didn't seem all that weak to me!" but the bravado in my voice was empty and he knew it. "What...what were they?"

"Lesser beings," he answered derisively with a flick of a hand. "Weaklings that can only effect this plane of existence when gathered together. Even with all their combined strength, they can only affect objects on the thresholds between worlds." Such as bones of the dead, the remains of something once alive. "Like starved beasts, they prey on the weak willed and isolated."

Which I took to mean that 'they' preferred their victims to be scared witless and less likely to fight back. Just like a school yard bully.

"Now," Nevi glared at me, "you've found more than one."

I blinked with surprise before I realized that since only one of the heirloom pieces had touched my hand, the tattoo was still reacting to the one I'd been carrying around. So after being summoned it would have been simple to surmise that I had more than one piece, and only one had been used to summon him.

I stared at him. "Are you kidding? Those things nearly killed me, and you're just going to take your precious heirloom and leave me here with them?"

"They'll keep their distance if they know what is in their best interests."

"That doesn't mean they can't kill me before you wipe them out or whatever!" I distinctly remembered that the monsters on the ship attack once you get the apatheia. Though the monsters were different, that didn't mean the pale blur things would let us off the hook.

Apparently that made him think a bit. "It is true that they do not possess the sharpest of intelligences... Killing you out of spite for my actions might not be so far-fetched..." Though this didn't seem to overly concern the fairy. I clutched my arms in a tight hug, trying not to jump up and strangle the little bastard. He had just proven that if he wanted to, he could do far worse to me than the skeletons would have.

Nevi's purple eyes were distant, some new thought occurring to him. But when they focused on me again he just held out his hand expectantly. Not feeling up to standing, I handed over the piece with the diamond and emerald. It wasn't glowing as bright as before, but the light hadn't entirely gone out. "And the other?" he pressed.

I wearily reached into my boot to pull out the ruby and sapphire tipped piece. Its light hadn't changed at all. Weird. I dropped it next to the first. "And now your hand."

"What?" I asked dumbly. An overly wrung out and exhausted corner of my brain muttered, _later I'll have nightmares about Nevi asking for my hand in marriage..._

"Your hand," he reiterated, sounding like he was nearing the end of his patience. That hadn't taken much. I lifted my left hand and held it out to him. Instead of taking it he hissed through his teeth, "Take the glove off first, simpleton."

I peeled off what was left of my ragged glove, and he snatched my hand as soon as I offered it to him. He weighed the heirloom pieces in his one hand for a moment, studying them for a moment. Decisively he stuck the one with the ruby and sapphire into the breast pocket of his gold and crimson trimmed vest. Then before I could react he jabbed the diamond and emerald one into the back of my hand.

It was like he'd taken an iron stake from a fire and stabbed me with it. I howled in pain, trying to pull away. He let go without even trying to stop me. I clutched my hand in close to my chest, curling around it as if that could ease the pain somehow. My vision began to tunnel, black around the edges, and as if from a distance I heard his voice say, "You are only being permitted to borrow that for the time being. I will reclaim it when your work is finished."

I could only whimper in reply. "Hnph," came his distant scoff. "Pathetic creature."

x x x

The pain finally began fade. It didn't go away, but it was a bearable pain after the initial searing fire. It was even like the pain had just diluted itself, so that it was spread all through my body instead of concentrated on one point. The change allowed me to focus on things past the pain. There was the wood I was lying on, its splinters biting into my cheek. And a cool breeze was teasing through my damp hair. I shivered, realizing I was absolutely drenched from the water in the bottom of the ship and my own sweat.

Sitting up, I looked around in confusion. I was sitting on the highest level of the _Atherum's_ deck. I could only guess Nevi had brought me there. Why up there, I hadn't a clue. If he was trying to help me escape the ghost ship, shouldn't he have left me on the main deck so I could return to the _Fiertia_? As it was I could see no way down there except for a trapdoor leading back into the ship.

I really didn't want to go back inside.

But when I stood up I practically keeled over backwards. There was no way I could climb down to the deck in my condition so I'd have to chance going through the ship. I pulled the trapdoor open, wrestling with the weight it was given by my exhausted and aching arms.

"Aaack! S-something's c-coming down!" _Wait a minute. I know that cowardly stutter!_ I stuck my head down through the opening.

"Hey there!" I said with a peppy cheerfulness I didn't feel.

"Letha?" Was the collective unbelieving reaction. The whole group was together again, and had gathered around a desk where a captain hat wearing skeleton sat slumped over a box. I noted wryly that Karol, Rita, and Raven looked nervous about being so close to it, and even their surprise to have me appear from above didn't keep them from throwing wary glances at it. Not that I blamed them.

"Weren't ya going back to the _Fiertia_?"

At the same time Raven asked, Karol questioned, "How'd you get up there?"

"Hell, you guys, I don't even _know_," I groaned. "I just wanna get off this crazy rig." I swung my legs down and climbed down the ladder, trying not to make it obvious how close I was to just falling off.

"You look terrible," Yuri told me.

"And you sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself," I wrinkled my nose while trying to straighten out my clothes. Might as well have not bothered. "Have you figured out why our ship won't move?"

"Not really, but it turns out this ship is a thousand years old. And there's apparently something here that's supposed to repel monsters," the swordsman reported.

"Did you check that box?" I pointed at the red box the skeleton was clutching. I was too tired to play dumb, I just wanted to leave. "It looks like it was pretty important to him." Wandered carelessly over to a less crowded spot behind the desk, and noticed I was standing next to a globe of the world. I spun it idly, and felt my interest stir a bit.

There were the familiar landmasses I recognized from a map Ludwig had shown me, mostly unchanged, but what was really interesting was the ocean. It was _huge_, covering most of the globe. The continents and the water separating them covered about the same area as both my hands would laid side to side. The rest of Terca Lumireis was all water, though there were stylized sea dragons on the large ocean reminiscent of Earth's 'Beyond this place, there be dragons,' that indicated unexplored areas on maps.

Could it be that this world was much larger than the game had led me to believe? I'd thought the time needed to travel an entire world was disproportionately small, but perhaps we hadn't been covering as much of this world as I had assumed. There could be whole continents that the people of Terca Lumireis didn't even know about, besides that 'unexplored' one you need Ba'ul to get to.

"It would make sense since the journal mentioned a red chest," Estelle said thoughtfully, pulling me out of my musing.

"Hey old man, you go get it...!" Rita commanded, though her voice cracked and betrayed her fear.

"Um, no thank you," he drew back and made an unwilling gesture. "What is it with kids today, always blurting things out like that?"

"Here you go," Judith offered the chest to his still raised hands, the skeleton's arm still hanging on in a death grip.

"Waaah!" Raven's face twisted comically as he jumped back a bit. Then he slowly stepped forward again and reluctantly accepted the box from the beautiful krytian, careful not to touch the bony arm.

She kindly plucked the arm off and playfully began bending the wrist so that it waved its hand a bit. "Do you think it could be cursed?" she asked with a sweet smile.

"Judith darlin', you've got nerves of steel," the archer grimaced in admiration.

"Even I wouldn't have done that," I agreed. Well, maybe I would have, but not without quite a bit of reluctance to touch something dead. She did it without even a second of hesitation.

"This from the person who wanted to keep a skull as a souvenir?" Rita reminded me acerbically.

"Hey, I only thought about it, that's not the same thing!" Yuri and Estelle were giving me weird looks. "In my defense, I wanted it purely for the sake of an accurate reference for my paintings." The weird looks didn't go away. I huffed a bit and turned my back on them, "Fine, be that way."

"Hey, this thing's stuck..." Raven grunted as he tried to pry the lid off the red box. Having already been part of the prior discussion of my interests, he had ignored the exchange.

"Wh-what is _that!_" At Karol's terrified shout I wearily turned towards the mirror. _I guess the little buggers didn't take Nevi's warning seriously enough_... I was exhausted and not up to a fight but at least the others were all with me. So I wasn't overly concerned until-

"Holy _SHIT _is that?" -I saw what was glaring at us with cold burning blue eyes from the mirror.

It was one _huge ass_ skeleton wearing another skeleton! Easily ten, maybe even twelve feet tall, and its size practically doubled again by the heavy armor it wore. Huge pauldrons bulked out his shoulders, a breastplate worked to look like a skull with eyes glowing a sickly blue-green, and his lower abdomen and upper legs were protected by more armor designed to be the skull's ribecage and spinal column. A royal purple cape was draped over his right shoulder to give a final touch of bad ass.

If I were at home playing a game or watching an anime, I would have just gone, "Oh hey, a bit generic but pretty cool." Given that I was actually living this nightmare my sentiments became, "Oh shit, we are so fucked..."

Calmly, Judith placed the captain skeleton's arm back on the desk while musing, "It appears to have the opposite effect."

"What are you talking about?" Karol back pedaled away from the window, as the armored skeleton seemed to look down straight at him for a moment.

"It's drawing the monsters to us."

_Or, you know, it could be the little 'weaklings' went to get their big brother to sic on us in order to get even for Nevi trouncing them._ It could go either way, considering how the experience on the boat had changed from what I'd been expecting._ It doesn't seem like _this_ guy cares how much of us there are or if there are a few who aren't all that scared._ Though I belatedly realized I didn't see a single one of those blur things crawling over his reflection.

"Here it comes!" Estelle alerted us. The armored skeleton stepped down from the mirror, cape billowing out to the side as he drew a huge sword with a T-shaped blade from under its cover.

Judith leaped into the fray first, Yuri and Repede close on her heels. The krytian's spear dove for the massive skeleton but skittered off the armor leaving barely a scratch. That must have been some tough armor since I'd seen Judith punch through a giant turtle monster's shell with that spear.

Yuri's sword sliced through the air in sweeping circles. The metal flashed and kicked up sparks each time it clashed with the skull breastplate. But even his Dragon Swarm attack did little more than scrape a few shallow gouges into the armor.

Repede darted around behind while the Boss Skeleton's attention was fixed on its attackers. The dog cut savagely at the back of its legs with the dagger in his jaws, just where a normal flesh and blood opponent would have been hamstrung. He succeeded in chipping the bone-like greaves but that was all.

Unfazed by the nearly simultaneous attacks, the monstrous skeleton swung the massive T-shaped blade across in front of him, leaving a visible wake crackling with purple energy. Yuri and Judith brought their respective weapons up just in time to black, but were staggered and then thrown back by another pass of the sword.

"Dammit!" Yuri hissed, "You guys really weren't kidding. This guy's tough!"

"Photon!" Having observed how little effect physical attacks had, Estelle opted to try for magic. Bright light enveloped the Boss Skeleton, and it gave a rumbling roar of pain. When the light faded, however, it looked more pissed off than hurt.

For this first minute of so of battle, Karol, Rita, Raven and I all held back. Could you blame us? After all that trouble we went through earlier with the bony cronies we already knew a larger version would be a far cry from a cake walk. I especially was reluctant to jump in, the mere thought of having to use my dao and daggers making my arms ache.

But we snapped out of it when the monster shook off Estelle's Photon and took a step forward, floorboards creaking as it raised its sword for another attack.

"Cover me!" Rita started preparing a spell. Raven darted in, spinning around with his bow's blades to at least keep the monster occupied and maybe do some damage. Karol tried his hand at bashing at its legs and knees to cut down on its movement.

I pulled both my daggers and focused aer into them for a Pierce attack just under the 'skull's' left eye, where Judith's spear had left a dent. Repeated attacks in the same area should eventually break through. And my Pierce did take a couple of small chips out of it.

I was in too close for it to bring its sword to bear so it tried to wallop the side of my head with its arm. Ducking under, I scooted to the side just in time to avoid Rita's Freeze Lancer.

One of the giant icicles punched through the spot weakened by Judith and I, another made a slightly larger hole lower on the right where Yuri's Dragon Swarm had landed, and a third broke a chunk off of the right pauldron and took a swatch of the cape with it.

Encouraged by our successes, we continued to take turns like this. Someone would attack, and while the monster tried to retaliate someone else would jump into any openings in its guard for another hit. All the while Rita and Estelle were free to cast spells. If the Skeleton tried to attack either of them the rest of us all rushed it at once and kept hacking away until it left off again.

That's not to say it was an easy fight. Each individual attack, even the magical ones, were shrugged off like irritating bug bites. All together the damage was building up, but we were also wearing out and taking a beating in return. A third of Estelle's spells were either First Aid or Nurse (another third was support magic like Sharpness), while Karol and Raven had to abandon attacking several times to use Nice Aid Smash and Love shot on one of us.

At some point my conscious thought switched off. I was attacking and dodging and eating the occasional gel purely on autopilot. Dimly I was aware of the realization that if I stopped moving I wouldn't be able to start up again. Details about the fight were hazy in my mind, I couldn't remember when I switched out one of my daggers for my dao. I must have done so for the greater versatility in the artes I could use that way.

How long had we been fighting? Rita and Estelle must have nearly exhausted their magical ability... Estelle fell into hand to hand combat, using artes like Pierce Cluster to help wear down a weak spot in the armor... That must have meant she had little left and was trying to conserve it for healing or something... What would Rita do if she ran out?

The T-shaped sword was descending towards me diagonally for a chop to my shoulder and side. Tiredly I lurched out of the way and raised my dao to help deflect it. But my faithful sword took the blow more directly than I had meant it to and the blade shattered.

My entire right arm was numbed and I dropped the dao hilt as my hand fell limply to my side. I stared in shock at the jagged pieces of metal on the floor, deaf to the shouting voices from somewhere across the room as my mind tried to catch up.

Something slammed into my left side and I was flung into the bookshelves standing in cabin's corner. Books and scrolls were dumped on my head, loose pages flying everywhere. I gasped in pain and then coughed. Breathing was painful, both my side and back felt wet. There was noise everywhere, or was it just in my head?

A glowing blue dart flew from somewhere, striking me in the chest. To my relief some of the pain eased and I could breathe more normally. My swimming head cleared enough for me to make some sense from the shouting I had hardly registered before.

"Letha!"

"Move!"

I looked up and saw the Boss Skeleton raising his sword up to cleave me in half. The hole filled skull breastplate gaped at me like the laughing face of death.

And I couldn't will myself to move out of the way.

"_Ah!_" The sword flashed down. Yuri, Karol, and Judith all leaped forward to try and intercept it, but I could tell they would be too late. Instinctively I shielded my head with my arms and shut my eyes. And my left hand began to burn like it was on fire.

"No!" Estelle screamed.

There was a dull _thunk_ from the bladed edge biting into the wood under me, much like how I'd defeated a skeleton before. Surprisingly I felt no pain other than the seeming fire in my left hand. I cracked my eyes open and looked down at myself.

The T-shaped sword was stuck right through my body, from sternum to hips. But there was no gaping wound and no blood. Wonderingly I reached up a hand and pressed it against the blade, but it just went through. The Skeleton pulled its sword out again, looking about as confused as something without facial muscles and skin can look. It raised its sword to strike at me again.

This time I rolled to the side, barely avoiding the heavy blade that came down beside me. But it didn't cut as deeply into the floor and I saw the Boss Skeleton shift his stance to swing it upwards at me. I swung a foot out so that the roll turned into a kinda spin that brought me back up onto my feet. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap-" I dashed back towards the group and felt one of the tips of the 'T' catch on the end of my coat and tear through it.

The dumbfounded expressions that greeted me clearly told me they all couldn't believe I wasn't dead, but some of them had the presence of mind to leave well enough alone until we were no longer in danger.

"Luna Rise!" Judith found a reserve of energy that was just enough to knock the skeleton into the air and follow it up to complete the somersaulting move. Her control was such that her spear didn't catch in the ceiling, and followed up with, "Dawn Moon!"

Both attacks landed well. The Skeleton was brought down to its knees, where it glared balefully as a massive section of its breastplate finally fell away. No one moved as the piece of armor fell to the floor with a clatter, and we continued to stare back as it remained kneeling. Finally it stood up again, making us all grip our weapons grimly as we expected the fight to continue. But it flipped its cape to the side and turned its back on us very deliberately. With slow, pondering steps, it returned to the mirror and stepped back up into the glass. Once inside, it did not deign to look back at us, but just seemed to vaporize...

It took awhile for it to sink in that the fight was over. "We're-We're done? That's finally it?" Karol asked as if he expected us to be like, "April Fools!" and pull out some other monster to half kill us.

Or three quarters kill some of us? I really wasn't sure why I wasn't dead. I couldn't help pinching at myself just to check.

Raven hung his head wearily, "Jeez, poor Raven's getting' too old for this." For once I didn't think that was an exaggeration. Or at least not as much as usual.

"Should we give it back to him?" Judith nodded at the red chest and then looked over at the captain skeleton in his chair. Er, well, his desk had been knocked into during the fight and that had knocked him over...but he was still in his chair! If I wasn't so goddamn tired and achey I'd have to fight the urge to go over and set him upright again.

Karol nodded enthusiastically. "I think that's what he wants!" _No, that's just what you want._

"Letha, are you...are you okay?" Estelle looked as if she was afraid I'd drop over dead at even a look. Her hands were raised hesitantly in the air, and I could tell she would have done one of her full body injury checks if not for that fear.

"What the hell was that?" Yuri asked, sounding not exactly angry, but certainly not happy that he'd seen a friend killed without being killed in front of his eyes. He wanted answers.

"I don't know. I don't fucking know." I slumped back, my shoulders hitting a wall behind me and screaming at me in pain. But I was too tired to give a damn, and just slid down to sit on the floor. "I've had enough of this place..." I wanted to leave it all behind, go back to the _Fiertia_ and sleep for a day, and then pretend it was all just an especially warped nightmare caused by something I ate. If I'd eaten some of that mermen sushi I could blame it all on that.

"I dunno if anyone else noticed, but didn't her hand, like, glow again when she was hit?"

"That's right... I'm sure it did." Rita crossed her arms and bowed her head while thinking hard. Then she looked over at me sharply. "Your tattoo wasn't glowing when you came in here before, right?"

I blinked slowly. "Uhh, no, I don't think it was..." I hadn't actually paid it any attention, but my hand had indeed stopped glowing when Nevi left with the heirloom...

Him stabbing me in the hand with an heirloom piece flashed through my mind again.

"And it isn't glowing right now," Rita was continuing her train of thought, so I must have been too tired to show any outer indication of my epiphany, "so it's probably safe to assume that it was linked with...whatever happened just now. Some sort of side effect that made the weapon go right through you. But how..."

_Oh great, I've piqued her scientific interest. Now she's gonna start poking at me and trying to get it to happen again_. Though it would probably be useful if it wasn't just a one time fluke.

"You're sure you're alright?" Estelle asked again. I hadn't really given her much of an answer the first time...

"Yeah...I feel like I just got dragged through one of the levels of hell, but its nothing I won't get over," I said wearily. I wasn't the only one who looked like a recent tourist of hell. The others were banged up, cut and bruised all over. I was just the only who'd caught a sword through the chest and gut.

Once she'd ascertained that I wasn't in urgent need of drastic medical measures, Estelle began to quickly assess the group's collective injuries. She made judicious decisions of which wounds to heal immediately and which could wait until we were back on our ship. While healing a gash on Yuri's ribs, she hesitantly spoke up again.

"I...I want to deliver the clear ciel crystal to Yormgen for him." We didn't need to ask who she meant by 'him'.

"You what?" Rita's outburst made me wince, my head was starting to pound as if the Boss Skeleton had rematerialized inside it and was stomping around. I sighed and rested my head back against the wall as the familiar dialogue ensued.

"Would it be possible to add that to the jobs being done by the guild?"

"We can't, Estelle. As a rule, tiny guilds like ours don't take on a new job until they complete the one they're working on."

Raven backed Karol up, "Completin' each job to the letter is the way new guilds have ta build their reputation."

"Hm? Is the guild going to be sent running here and there by another one of this girl's whims?" I involuntarily groaned a bit when Judith said the word 'running'.

"Hey! You don't have to talk to her like that, you know!"

"Rita, wait... Judith, I am sorry." Estelle folded her hands and bowed her head a bit, but then she looked up with a light in her eyes that was determined to make us understand her feelings. "But I want to help him deliver this...to the one who was waiting for him."

"I don't think anyone waits for a thousand years," Yuri pointed out realistically. The captain's bones were a mute testament to just how much time had passed, and the likely fate of whomever had been waiting for his return.

"I'll find them," Rita declared stubbornly.

I started to wonder while listening to Rita defending Estelle. She'd clearly been against it before, but when Judith spoke like 'that' and the others were reluctant to accept the crystal delivery as a new job, she about faces and takes it on herself. Was that really something you would do for a friend you've known for a little over a month?

_Hmm, Estelle is kinda Rita's first real friend right? Other than that she started her research at a young age and only trusts blastia, I don't know much about her background. The game made it sound like she'd been really hurt by people before, but if it goes into depth about it I never heard about it_. How lonely must Rita have been, if she became so protective of her first friend's happiness? _She probably never even realized she was lonely, probably thought the blastia was enough..._

But here she was volunteering to track down people from a city that no one even remembered, and must realize she had more friends than she thought when one by one we were all throwing in our lot to go with her and help. Which I supposed they thought meant going with her after we'd taken care of Phaeroh...?

_Screw it. Thinking hard is hereby aborted in favor of hardly thinking_.

That was when Raven noticed the smoke from Tokunaga's flare.

Yuri studied the signal and the ship from the cabin window, "I wonder if the ceres blastia's working again."

"Why else send up the flare?" I pointed out. _Actually...because they're under attack and need us to come save them? Shut up brain_.

"Come to mention it, we won't be able to get back the way we came." Rita eyed the stairway that lead back down into the belly of the ship.

Judith clasped her hands behind her back, "We'll just have to see if we can't find a better way out." She looked over at me, "What about up above, where you came down from?"

I shook my head. "No good. Only way down was through this room. I'm not sure how I got up there, I just kinda...woke up there." _Most_ likely Nevi's fault. Probably. I could be wrong. But I was probably right.

Karol's expression fell, "Now what, every other way is either blocked off or locked."

_Urrgh, I wanna go! Push plot along!_ I levered myself up onto my feet again, and walked over to the only actual door in the room. "What about through here?" Before they could tell me that it was locked, I grabbed the knob and turned it. The door opened smoothly and let in the clean sea air.

"Huh? Wasn't this locked earlier?" Karol came up and inspected the lock in astonishment.

"I guess we can go back this way," Yuri stepped out first.

Raven followed him, "...Hmm, the curse was broken, huh?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Rita chased out after him and I heard a smack. Sighing, in relief that we were finally done, I followed her out.

x x x

I was very cruel to Letha this time around. Which, some of you have probably figured out, means I had a _lot_ of fun with this chapter.

Cipher/Cifer/Seifer cameo for the win? I don't have enough material to work with to put Patty in, which is a shame because I think her story sounds great, it really adds to the adventure and helps show just how far Alexei fell in his insanity. So I at least put Cifer in. We can all pretend that Patty is also running around doing her own thing, and its just circumstances that she doesn't meet up with the Brave Vesperia group.

Urgh...this fight...I kinda cut some corners with it. Because there are EIGHT PEOPLE to keep track of and only one enemy. Maybe some holes in it, but I think overall it works out okay...

Now I collapse and sleep. Love you all! *Collapses in bed* _Zzzzzzz._


	33. Chapter 33: My Heart's a Tall Ship

Gyaaah, looong two weeks for me, and I just didn't have the heart to write anything. And the chapter I finally got out has more filler than I'd like. I'M SORRY!

Chapter title comes from a line from a song in a book I vaguely remember reading for school years ago. Just stuck in my head and seemed appropriate.

For anyone who didn't quite get why those skeletons last chapter had it in for Letha, here's the whole explanation including the stuff you have to read in between the lines to get:

As Nevi told Letha, the bones were being moved by weak "lesser beings" which we can shrug off as a low class of fairy or spirits. Being weak they 1. can only move things caught between boundaries 2. can only target victims that are weak, frightened, or isolated.

Yuri, Repede, and Judith are all strong people not easily frightened, and Estelle was reassured by their collective presence. So group one did not see any bones walking around. Group two, however, was full of people who were jumping at shadows and creaking floor boards, and not in an environment where they could fight to the best of their abilities. They were easy targets. And then Letha was freaking out and alone.

Unfortunately, Letha didn't know that Yuri's group didn't have to fight skeletons, so I couldn't have her make that connection in chapter.

Angelic:

You made me picture that. I then laughed my ass off. A katana does not suit the butterfly man, so imagining him trying to be all serious and heroic with one, to protect Letha of all people, its a hilarious mental image for me.

Look! It's so ridiculous the 'N' key came off my lap top again! *Grumbles and smashes the 'N' key back on.*

x x x

Chapter 33: My Heart's A Tall Ship

x x x

Kaufman gave us all a thorough scolding once we were safely back on the _Fiertia_. The whole "Anyone else would have left you guys behind," spiel. And Yuri gave his word that we wouldn't do it again, which nobody really believed he meant. Other than that I had pretty much ignored all the pointless talk about hypothetical reasons why the ceres blastia started working again and what ifs about the ship being cursed.

While that conversation ran its course, I slipped away back to my cabin to finally rest. I collapsed on my bunk and grit my teeth at the resulting wave of pain from my protesting muscles. It was better than being split open from skull to belly button, but it still sucked. Sprawled across my bed I threw an arm across my eyes.

The cabin door creaked and the floor creaked, indicating someone coming in with hesitant steps. "Letha?" It was Estelle.

"Hmm?" I said to indicate I was awake and heard her.

"I've finished healing everyone else, so..."

"My turn next?" I groaned a bit as I sat upright. In a flash, Estelle was by my side and using her healing artes. Normally, a healing session from Estelle brought warmth and relief, though I'd usually have a nagging sense of guilt. But this time it only finished fixing up the assorted scrapes, cuts, and bruises. The deep ache in most of my body barely lessened.

"Is that better?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks," I tried to sit naturally, as if I wasn't feeling like a giant black and blue bruise. Estelle frowned at me, not fooled. I guess she'd started to get more of a feel for people trying to hide things from her. Or at least for when I was hiding something. Though I wasn't prepared at all when she suddenly reached out and pulled my shirt up to expose my stomach. "Estelle!"

Her face was actually pretty red from her own forward actions, but she wouldn't be deterred. "There isn't even a scar... You really weren't hurt before?"

"N-no, I'm fine," my voice was a little shaky. This was not a topic I felt comfortable discussing with anyone. "I'm just tired, I'll be fine once I've slept." The princess didn't look convinced, but was willing to let me have my way since I was planning on resting. Though she didn't leave until she'd seen me kick my boots off and pull the thin blankets over myself.

She blew out the only lit candle as she left. Alone again in the darkness, I sighed. _I guess I have a new complication to figure out_...

x x x

_It was a calm and peaceful scene. Warm oranges and pink blended into a velvety purple that peeked through the cottony clouds. The water it all rested on was a harmony of those warm colors shining off cooler grays and black, capped by the occasional frothy white. Seagulls reeled through the sky._

_A beautiful sight. Awe inspiring even._

_But it only struck a cold fear through me._

_Because nothing was moving._

_The clouds weren't drifting by. The waves weren't rolling in towards the shore. The seagulls were stuck in place, circling in the sky. When I tried to turn my head, it refused to obey. I tried to lift my foot and take a step, to move my hand, to open my mouth and say something. I couldn't do any of it._

_I could only stand and stare at the unchanging horizon._

x x x

When I woke I lay still, eyes unfocused as if I could see right through the thin mattress in the bunk above me. Slowly my dream came back to me, and I found myself irrationally afraid that if I tried to get up I'd discover I couldn't move. _Don't be ridiculous_. I rolled over onto my stomach, the relief that I actually could lifting away the paralyzing fear.

Rocking back so that I sat on my heels, I ground the palms of my hands against my eyes. _Something is seriously wrong. It's not normal for me to get the same dream again. Yeah, they're not exactly the same, but they're way more similar than any others I've had._ Pretty much the closest thing was the usual school related nightmares that any normal kid from home could be expected to have. If there was anything else...I couldn't remember it anymore. I couldn't imagine why I'd have recurring nightmares featuring sunsets though.

_Am I starting to crack under all the stress?_ That wasn't good. It would make sense, but the last thing I needed was to start questioning my mental health. And the only solution I knew would be to share my problems with someone. _That...is that really so bad? If I left out the part about the game and knowing future events, would that be so bad?_

Well, how would everyone react?

Raven was first, because he was easiest. I couldn't tell him since at this point it was a guarantee that the information would find its way back to Alexei. Whether or not he believed I was from another world really didn't factor in, I just couldn't risk him finding out.

Rita wouldn't believe me. She'd start protesting how scientifically impossible it was. But if I could give her solid proof...though even if I should show her my (uncharged) phone or mp3 player she'd probably still deny it. For all she knew they could be made of weird, undiscovered blastia.

Karol...pass. He'd get so overexcited, I wasn't sure he'd even be able to decide if he believed me or not. It would definitely be too much on his shoulders, he was busy enough adjusting to his new responsibilities.

Estelle. Would maybe believe me. She'd already been learning about Earth without knowing it, every now and then I caught her practicing the familiar alphabet of my home world. Every time it sent a pang of nostalgia and homesickness through me. But she was too kind hearted, she'd start worrying about my problems even once she learned about the Children of the Full Moon. And, though I didn't mean anything bad by it, I wasn't sure the girl would be able to keep my secret from others.

With that in mind, Yuri or Judith became the most likely confidants, but...

Hell, if Yuri was still playing the observer and piecing things together, he was probably getting closer to the truth on his own. I doubted he'd make the final leap to, well, alien (though I hated to think of it that way). And, if I was honest with myself, I didn't want to tell him that I'd been lying yet again last time I'd told my 'story'. I just wasn't sure how far you could push him before losing the trust you earned, especially since I wasn't sure _how_ I earned it in the first place.

Judith...I couldn't say. She'd...take it calmly and...keep on being Judith. Probably would want to know why I told her, of all people, when from where she was standing I didn't know her nearly as well as I knew the others.

But...

Tell any of them, and they'd be drawn in. Maybe the fairies would consider them fair game as pawns to use in their infighting. Maybe if Alexei really had heard enough babble from me when I was aersick and out of it, he'd try to use the people around me to get more information. Maybe the mysterious green haired woman who had me kidnapped would try something even worse.

_Stop kidding yourself. You're a bookworm and a writer. One of the most basic concepts in any dimension hopping story like this is to keep your origins secret._ I ran a hand through my hair, combing back the tangle (the trip on the ghost ship had not been kind). _Given, that inevitably results in the truth getting dragged out into the open in less than ideal circumstances._

Shaking my head, I decided to go out and get some air.

We'd long since left the _Atherum's_ fog behind. And I'd slept the night through, despite the bad dream. A clear morning greeted me, the dawning sun red and rising slowly. "Red sky at night, sailors delight...red sky at morning, sailors take warning..."

x x x

_**How Does it Work?**_

_Karol: How did you do that anyway?_

_Letha: Do what?_

_Karol: That thing before, when the sword went through you? How did you get it to do that?_

_Letha: I...I don't really know. I wasn't really thinking anything at the time, so I guess it might have been on instinct. Reflexive reaction to danger or something._

_*Rita punches Letha*_

_Letha: Ow! What was that for?_

_Rita: I wanted to see if you'd do it again._

_Letha: I already said I don't know how!_

x x x

"-and Bilbo had finished packing the dwarves into their barrels just in the nick of time. The last lid had just been put into place when the elf butler and the guard came in.

One by one they kicked the 'wine' barrels into the water, and just as the last barrel was about to go in Bilbo caught hold of it. His plan had unfortunately neglected that there'd be no one left to pack him into a barrel, so he was obligated to ride one and hope his magic ring would keep the elves from noticing him. He rolled over and over and got dunked in the river several times before he managed to arrange himself comfortably."

"Can't be any worse than what we're goin' through," Raven quipped wryly.

A storm had hit late in the morning, starting with a strong wind that kicked up suddenly and carried in torrential rain. The ocean practically boiled with violent waves that constantly kept washing across the deck. Tokunaga sent everyone but Biggs and Wedge into the cabins to keep out of their way as they staggered across the deck trying to keep everything in order.

The ship rocked again as another massive wave hit. Karol groaned and dropped his head between his knees in an effort to keep from being sick. Rita was clutching a bucket to her chest, which no one considered taking from her upon seeing the green tinge to her face. I wasn't sure if they were getting any of the story, but when I tried to stop they protested. They insisted I keep talking to help take their minds off of the storm. Without anything else to do (that wouldn't get them soaked to the skin) the others had joined us.

I wasn't feeling so hot myself. Boats weren't anything new to me, but I'd never been on the water during rough weather before. I had wedged myself into a corner of the room where I didn't get tossed around quite as badly and occasionally took a sip of water to fight down a sour taste that threatened to climb up my throat.

While I continued with Bilbo's adventure I idly stroked my right thumb over my tattoo (my gloves had been ripped up too much to be of any use, so I wasn't bothering to wear them anymore). It was a riddle never too far from my mind. Just what exactly did Nevi _do?_ And what did _I_ do that made me all, I dunno what to call it, permeable? The sword had gone right through me without leaving a mark. I hurt like hell but I suspected that was a side effect either from whatever the fairy man did or what I did as opposed to pain caused by an injury. The pain had mostly receded overnight, to my relief.

After some consideration I'd decided I needed to experiment and figure out how to get the permeable thing to work again, sooner rather than later. But I wanted to try it in private so it would have to wait for better conditions. Until then...

"Bobbing along in barrels wasn't exactly the number one choice of travel, but it did cut back on the trip so that it only took a few days to get to Lake Town. The lake men gathered the barrels and pulled them up onto the docks, and during the night Bilbo started knocking on each one until he found the ones that were packed with dwarves. All of them were weak from captivity and hunger, several sick, and very few had any strength left to help the hobbit free their fellows.

"Once all thirteen dwarves were found, Thorin led the group to the largest, brightest lit inn where many of the human men had gathered to drink at the end of the day. Throwing open the door, Thorin looked at the men as they all stared at the strangers. 'I am Thorin, son of Thalin,' he announced, 'King Under the Mountain. I have returned!'"

_Gotta love how he manages a dramatic entrance even when he probably looked like a half drowned rat._

x x x

We got free of the storm in the afternoon. Karol and Rita practically rocketed out of the cabin to hang over the railing. I happily took the chance to get some fresh air and feel the sun again. My legs felt awfully cramped from the hours I'd spent holed up in my corner.

"Well, look who the cat dragged in." Kaufman's familiar confident tone met me as I limped over to the railing. "Bet you regret talking me into letting you shirk your bodyguard duty to explore that ship now, huh?"

"A bit," I conceded. It would be pointless to argue considering my clothes looked like they'd just lost a fight with a paper shredder. "And that reminds me..." I loosened the burgundy silk still wrapped around my neck. I'd forgotten it was there, but its absence left me feeling cold and vulnerable. I handed over the long swatch of silk, smooth as water and warm in my hand. "I promised to bring you something, didn't I?"

"This is..." her eyes widened as she took the silk and rubbed it between her fingers. "Kogorh Silk! This stuff is really valuable, it was really on that ship?"

"Yeah, but what's so special about it?" _I mean, yeah, it's pretty nice but is it really any better than other silk?_

"Because it's really hard to find now," she told me. "Apparently it used to be in pretty high demand and worth a lot since not much of it was made. No one remembers who made it except that it was some city in the desert. So it's called Kogorh Silk and fetches a pretty price on the market." The president was practically drooling at the find.

_Ah, I guess that makes some sense. The desert city must have been Yormgen. Yormgen Silk. They never got the apatheia needed to make a barrier blastia, so their city died and no one made the silk anymore._ The facts fit.

"So...that mean you want it?" I asked her teasingly. Giving the silk away seemed a shame, but I wouldn't be able to sell it for half its worth myself, and I _had_ promised to give her something worth it.

Kaufman looked up from examining the silk and planted a hand on her hip. "I can't just take it like this. I have my professional reputation to think of. Considering nothing happened while you all were away, and the trouble you went through getting this..." She eyed the conspicuously empty scabbard that my dao used to be kept in. "I suppose it's only fair to replace some of your equipment in exchange."

That took me by surprise. It was already established that I'd give it to her, right? Wouldn't she make more of a profit if she'd just taken it?

"I don't have anything for you now, but once we get to Nordopolica I can get you outfitted. Then we'll call it even, alright?"

"Um, yeah, sure." _This is...a good thing?_

x x x

The storm had blown us off course a bit, adding an extra day or so to our voyage. All told it took nearly eight more days to reach Nordopolica. It was a week spent by all of us desperately trying to find something to do to pass the time.

It only took a few days of nothing to do to wrap up my recounting of _The Hobbit_. Once I finished Estelle and Karol were left with little in the way of diversions. After a day of being very bored they came back begging for another story. I actually felt bad turning them down, but my throat had actually gotten sore from the combined salty air and all that talking. I hoarsely promised to think of another long story to tell them if they gave me a few days of peace. Estelle took to doodling random words in my Earth alphabet and Karol flipped through the pages of his monster book.

Rita was busy throwing things at me at the most unexpected times. Apparently the lack of explanation for my surviving a fatal sword stroke really bothered her scientific mind. Several times she'd march right up to me and demand to look at my tattoo, and after staring at it and poking the weirdly shifting colors she'd growl exasperatedly and walk away muttering.

Yuri is not the type to just sit around. After a few days he was even more restless than the rest of us, and started asking Tokunaga, Biggs, and Wedge all sorts of questions about what they were doing. Which led to them teaching him a bit about sailing, perfectly happy to have a fourth pair of helping hands on board. A few times the swordsman managed to get Karol involved in helping out. Not a hard feat considering how the boy looked up to him.

Raven was most comfortable with all the free time, using it to nap. I was amazed by his almost catlike ability to sleep anywhere. I developed a hypothesis that maybe the man's sloth was due to his blastia heart. Maybe all the extra sleep was a way to compensate for that thing feeding off his life energy? Which I never really got in the first place, it sounded more like a neat explanation designers would toss out there without believing anyone would question it. And if the characters who explained it didn't question it, normally the players wouldn't either.

I wasn't exactly the average player anymore though.

And what was I doing? Scribbling in my notebook when no one was around to look over my shoulder. To my dismay most of what I was writing were half remembered anecdotes that trailed off into no conclusions. Even worse was when I went back to read some of the first stuff I'd written. There were whole sections I didn't remember. Meaning I could remember _writing_ them, but I couldn't remember _what_ I had written at those times, and the life story those words told me came as a surprise too many times. An autobiography should NOT read like a mystery novel...

I also tried to experiment with passing through things. Nothing big, I'd just try to push my hand through the ship's railing or something, things that shouldn't draw the others attentions even if they succeeded. But I had no more luck than Rita with her Projectiles of Randomness.

When I got tired of my failure streak I'd pull out my notebook again and start sketching random things around the _Fiertia_. My drawing skills might have taken a back seat to painting, but with so much time to kill and no distractions, I could work on polishing those skills again. Though at the end of the day I would just stop and stare at the setting sun. My grip on notebook and pencil would loosen, all but dropping them, and I would just stare blankly into space thinking to myself until the sun was gone and the stars were out. If the others thought this was strange, they never brought it up.

So eight days of that. And late on the eighth day we finally sighted land and Nordopolica, the Coliseum City.

x x x

"My, how pretty," Judith breathed appreciatively as everyone admired the fireworks being launched from somewhere in the city. Of course, they barely held a candle to some of the Fourth of July displays I could remember (my town blows way too much money on those, nearly a solid hour of fireworks every year), but my jaded response went unnoticed as everyone else was staring up at the sky.

"So, a party in the streets everyday, huh? This is gonna be great!" The flares of lights from the fireworks lit up Raven's crooked grin.

His enthusiasm was quickly dampened by Yuri. "Since when are you on vacation?"

"Oh yeah, right... A minion's work is never done."

"You're the Don's messenger, so don't be rude to Belius!" Karol reminded him.

"Young man, you are looking at a veritable paragon of manners and good breeding. Nya hah hah hah." Raven's _weeeird_ laugh had me giggling into my hand. He sounded like such a creeper sometimes, no wonder no one (without the unique perspective of a gamer) ever associated him with the composed Schwann.

Kaufman thanked us for our work, and the others began discussing the best method for traveling to the Sand of Kogorh. Sadly despite having a 'new' ship we couldn't use it to get any closer. Leaving only the option of walking for miles and miles like before. _Ah, good times..._

"Are you seriously going through with this?" Rita gave us all her disbelieving glare again, even though she'd had plenty of time to realize she wasn't going to talk Estelle out of looking for Phaeroh. "I told you, the desert is really dangerous."

"Pretty much anywhere you go is dangerous nowadays," I pointed out.

"That's different!" She snapped at me. I shrugged, because she wasn't really wrong. People who weren't prepared for a harsh new terrain rarely survived. But since there'd be no changing the princess' mind I'd just deal with that when we were there. Rita, meanwhile, had gone back to talking to Estelle. "I can't just let you go to a place like that all by your... I-I mean...!"

I smiled at her stammering as the genius failed to think of a way to cover for her protective concern. _As if we can't all see through you already. You have a heart, and we all know it~_ Estelle was also smiling at the younger girl, though a bit sadly.

The moment and that particular conversation ended when Tokunaga announced that we were dropping anchor. Disembarking time!

_And who's that there meeting us on the docks? Why it's Yea-I mean Regaey! Silly me!_ Now there was an even bigger gap in identities than with Raven and Schwann. Gone was the blue suit, flippy dark hair, and confident bordering arrogant smirk. Instead we had a timid, graying man in khakis. Like the stereotyped image of an archaeologist that I had picked up from cartoons.

"Oh, M-Madam P-President. It's an honor t-to have you here." _He even loses his pseudo German accent, nice..._

"Excavating more ruins?" Kaufman asked drily but with a friendly smile for her fellow guild boss. "I'm always impressed that the guild boss himself supervises the excavations."

"Th-the excavation of r-ruins is wh-what I l-live for."

"Who's that..?" Rita didn't bother whispering. What did she care if she offended someone with her bluntness?

Raven answered, not bothered by it at all. "That's Regaey, the head of Ruins' Gate."

"Ruins' Gate? That sounds familiar..." she trailed off into thought.

"They're the guild that's helping the imperial mages excavate ruins," the archer supplied helpfully.

"Oh, that's why I've heard of them."

Regaey was excusing himself from his talk with Kaufman. As he left I wondered why he'd been on the docks in the first place. In game, it was a chance to introduce him in preparation for the twist with the coliseum and big identity reveal later on. But it was too much of a coincidence for real life, so it probably wasn't a coincidence at all. _Either he was meeting someone here, or he somehow heard we were coming and was waiting for us_.

Ah, this world was doing wonders for my paranoia.

"He seems like a nice person," Estelle said aloud as the others were also watching the 'timid old man' leave. I wondered how they'd react if I told them this 'nice person' had tried to kill us two weeks earlier. Probably ask me if I was feeling alright.

"Hey," Rita got Kaufman's attention, "you were talking before about a guild that's selling hoplon blastia."

Yuri caught on, "You mean Leviathan's Claw?"

Rita nodded, "Do you think they might be getting their blastia under the table from those ruin guys?"

Kaufman frowned slightly at the accusation. "Ruin's Gate is completely innocent," she asserted firmly.

"How can you be so sure?" asked Yuri, needing more proof than just word of mouth. It was Raven that answered though.

"They're upstanding, serious, diligent... That's what they're known for."

"And, of course, for digging holes in the ground," I said quietly. Lame joke. Hopefully none of them heard it. Oh dear, Judith and Repede were looking at me...ah well.

"Well, I'm off. Take good care of the Fiertia. Say hi to Tokunaga for me, too." Kaufman said by way of goodbye. Though as she was turning to leave, she looked back over her shoulder at me. "I'll need you to come along with me a little longer though."

"What? Oh yeah, right."

"Huh? What do you need Letha for?" Karol asked, bewildered as to why the President of a major guild would suddenly whisk of away one of his own guild members.

"Just a bit of business," she told him.

"I'll meet you guys later at the inn," I called back as I fell into step behind Kaufman, her own crony just a little ahead of me.

Kaufman, being president of a _merchant's_ guild, knew exactly where she wanted to go. Before I knew it we were already in a shop that catered to adventurer types over the typical civilians. It was run by a rather rough looking older couple with old scars and calloused hands. Presumably former adventurers who'd settled down and lived vicariously through their customers.

Half the store looked like a weapons shop, and was evidently the man's domain. His counter and the wall behind it were bristling with weapons, from ice pick like daggers to massive morning stars and maces. I'm positive I caught glimpses of some more exotic weapons in the mix, like shurikens, blow darts, chain swords, and something that I could only relate to a tea kettle...

The other half of the store belonged to the woman (his wife?). It was filled with very practical clothing and assorted armor. I curiously fingered a roll of durable looking fabric and was pleased to discover that while it was sturdy as it looked, it didn't feel rough at all. And looking closer at some of the other completed clothing I guessed that a practiced eye could put together something serviceable without sacrificing style. Adventurers want to look good too.

Practically before the words, "This one needs new equipment," were completely out of Kaufman's mouth the man snatched the belts with my sheathed daggers and empty dao scabbard right off my hips, so fast I never even felt him undo the belt buckles. I blinked and suddenly his wife had me in a curtained off fitting area. From the other side of the curtain I heard Kaufman say, "I'm off then, I already have a buyer for the silk in mind but he probably won't be in town long. Just tell them what you need and they'll send the bill to me later."

"Wh-what?" I spluttered, rather dazed as the woman had stripped me down to my leggings, shirt, and only the socks on my feet. She was impatiently taking my measurements with a worn yellow tape. "Aren't you worried I'll buy more than the silk was worth?"

"Do you think you can walk off with half the store?" she sounded amused. "If you somehow did manage to buy enough to bankrupt me, I'd know where to find you. But I'm sure you won't risk your guild's reputation just for some clothes and some swords."

"R-right." The reminder that she had the power to swat a little guild like ours if it got to be a nuisance actually put me back on solid ground. Kaufman was doing this because she was a businesswoman. Not because she'd had a sudden Judith or Estelle like urge to dress me up.

The shop woman (who I suppose will be forever nameless to me...) ducked out from the curtained area. She shouted something at her husband about muscle mass and seemingly unimportant numbers. Less than a minute later she bustled back in with an armload of clothes. I spent the next half hour trying on an assortment of pants, shirts, jackets, and light leather body armor of varying levels of protective cover.

In the end I was wearing fitted dark cream turtleneck, its long sleeves going past my wrists to cover my hands slightly (I was a bit relieved by that detail, I'd hate to try telling her I wanted something else). Over it was a lightweight leather vest. Not like the denim one I'd been wearing when I first showed up in Terca Lumireis, this one fit more snuggly and covered my shoulders with short sleeves. The leather provided a bit more protection than my coat had, but didn't hamper my movements at all. There were also a few pockets here and there, the only obvious ones being on the chest. And surprisingly it zipped up the front. I did not know there were zippers here!

My leggings were replaced by loose brown pants made of durable canvas like material with a softer lining and held up by a braided leather belt. They seemed like they should be heavy and make me overheat, but I guess the fabric was made specially so it was light and comfortable. There were large pockets, two on each hip, perfect to keep some handy gels in for emergencies. The bottoms were tucked into a new pair of boots, which fit a little better than my last pair.

The woman studied me with a critical eye before giving a nod and grunt of approval. Then I was spun around and pushed out, her calloused hands on my shoulders steering me across the room to where her husband was waiting. He gave me another critical look (these people were seriously starting to make me feel like a piece of meat they were going to buy and dice up for stew) before pulling out something from under his counter.

It was a pair of daggers on a belt. I stared blankly at them before realizing they were _my daggers_ and they were _not_ on _my _belt. He'd apparently picked out a new one for me, though I didn't know what the problem with the old one had been. At his grunt (_do you ever speak with words, man?_) I drew one of the daggers. It had been polished and sharpened, so that all the nicks and chips from fighting were gone. When I checked the other it proved to be the same.

"I's a temp'ry fix, though," he growled, "They'll last ye longer, but they're aw'ready old." Ah yes, this pair had come from the Shaikos Ruins, as had my sword. I suppose it really had been a matter of time until it broke. "Ye can get new 'nes now, 'r ye can hold onto those 'nes." He smacked my empty scabbard onto the counter. "But ye'll be needin' sumthin' to replace this 'ne either way."

"Er, yeah, I use a dao..." I trailed off, my eyes drawn to the weapons on display. I nearly jumped when there was another smack. My attention back on the counter, it was captured by a new scabbard that actually had a sword in it. I drew this one before his prompting grunt.

Another dao, much like my first one. Appearance wise, it wasn't much, but it was better balanced than my last and held a better edge, cutting my thumb easily when I tested it. Like the daggers it held a bright polish, and if that was anything to judge by it was probably very well maintained. Gotta admire a man who was serious about his work.

"This is perfect..." I breathed. The man and woman beamed at me, the warmest expressions I'd seen from them yet. I sheated the dao again and belted it around my waist, grateful for the return of a weight at my hip. Looking thoughtfully at my daggers, I considered if I should replace those. "How...how much would this all cost, anyway?" Sure Kaufman was footing the bill, but still...

The man smiled wolfishly and said a number. That number had me stumbling out of the shop a few minutes later with my old daggers back around my waist. Just how much was that freaking silk _worth?_

x x x

I went to the inn to arrange for our rooms and wait for the others. Sure, they'd have gone to Belius for an audience, but the big old full moon in the sky told me they'd be turned away like in the game. It would be another two weeks before we'd get to see her.

_That suits me just fine. I don't want to see her die... Hey, waitaminute. Isn't there something I can do about that?_ Little good was going to come out of that whole fiasco down the road. The coliseum would be in chaos, Estelle would try to help Belius with only good intentions but would instead cause her death, and that death in turn would lead to Whitehorse committing ritual suicide to make amends to Palestrale. That left two major cities without their leaders. One hell of a power vacuum.

_But even further down the line, Belius' apatheia becomes instrumental to stopping the Adephagos. She's even reborn, more or less, as Undine._

_But what if..._

_What if we had another apatheia? Then we wouldn't need hers, and it wouldn't hurt things in the long run to save her now!_ But where could I find another apatheia?

I practically smacked myself in the head when the answer came to me. There was the clear ciel crystal in that red box Estelle and Rita were carrying around. I hadn't thought of it as important since it would be destroyed the moment we showed it to Duke. But what if I could keep him from using Dein Nomos on it?

"Hardly recognized ya at first, Letha honey."

I looked up in surprise, not having heard anyone come in. "Oh, hey Raven." Then it occurred to me I should try and act like I hadn't expected them back so soon. "Did you already finish your business with the Duce?"

"Nah, turns out she won't meet anyone except durin' the new moon." Raven sat down in an armchair and kicked his feet up onto a low coffee table. "The others wanted to look around some more, but this old man is beat!"

"Mmhmm, I'm sure you are." I was distracted from his plight by a cat that had just entered the inn common room. I was leaning over the armrest of my chair, trying to coax the gray tabby into coming closer. It considered me with narrow yellow eyes, tail twitching.

"How cold!" he griped, noticing my lack of attention. I ignored him, as the cat was taking a few tentative steps in my direction. It was finally close enough that I could almost brush the tips of my fingers against its fur if I stretched just a bit. I held out my hand for it to sniff.

It was when the tabby began butting its head against my leather gloved hand that Raven finally spoke up again, and I realized he'd been quiet for longer than would fit his affected persona. "So ya also got another pair of gloves."

Inside I froze up, though to all appearances I was just fully absorbed in scratching the tabby behind the ears. He continued as if he didn't notice anything unusual, but that didn't mean he hadn't. "There some reason ya cover that thing up?" He didn't need to explain what 'thing' he meant.

I shrugged a shoulder as if it weren't that important. "Just don't like to stand out like I did back on the _Atherum_," and he didn't need anymore than that to understand I meant the portable glowing light show. "It doesn't happen often, but it's not very predictable. So I just got in the habit of wearing gloves." The couple at the store Kaufman had taken me to didn't throw in a pair, and I was honestly a bit too intimidated to ask for them. But I'd found another pair of fingerless gloves at a stall on the way to the inn.

"Uh huh. And where'd ya get somethin' like that anyway?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What, you didn't hear yet? I was expecting you to ask about it days ago." I really had. And when he hadn't asked me, I'd assumed someone else must have explained my supposed mishap with my 'aunt's' research materials.

"Must've slipped my mind." The cat lost interest in me and went to investigate the purple stranger on the other seat. Raven reached down and ruffled the fur on its head. I told my 'personal history' once again, the summary coming easily. I hoped the obvious familiarity made it sound authentic, and not rehearsed or scripted. When I was done there was silence between us. Until the tabby nipped at Raven's fingers and made him yelp.

He pushed the cat away reflexively, and the offended feline jumped across the room before turning back to stare indignantly at him. I giggled a bit. "Aw, how mean! That was just a love bite!" I held out my hand and waved my fingers enticingly at the cat, trying to coax it back to my willing pampering. It considered my fingers for a moment before leaving in the direction of the kitchen.

"I'd prefer love bites from somethin' without the sharp teeth," he declared.

"How about a fish? They don't have any teeth."

"Didn't ya get a look at the chompers those mermen had?"

"You're awful picky." I relaxed again at the banter. I was safe, the truth wrapped up neatly under layers of lies once again. For the time being.

x x x

Sooo muuuch _filler!_ I'm really not as happy with this chapter as most of my others. And I skipped some things I'd considered putting in since I wanted to get this done and finally _move on_ to a more interesting part!

To make up for (hopefully) the lateness of this chapter (the first half was seriously sitting on my computer for two weeks without going anywhere) and the fillerishness, I have a bunch of extras to add. First, there is another popularity poll for my original characters, as some of you have noticed. I also got really bored at some point and made Letha a formspring since I wasn't getting anywhere writing. AND there is some new art on my deviantart account. Yay. Links are in my profile.


	34. Chapter 34: Judicandus Homo Reus

Sylph: :D

Letha: She's been like that for awhile now. Nearly the entire time she was writing.

Sylph: :D

Letha: It's really starting to creep me out.

Sylph: **:D**

Letha: Oh God, somebody save us!

*A note falls to the ground as Letha runs out of the room with Sylph right behind*

"Reviews

"Angelic:

"I looove my foreshadowing~ I need a healthy serving every chapter~ ;) And I do NOT mash my 'N' button except when it comes off and I need to get it back on! For some reason brute force works better than fiddling with it carefully.

"The number for the equipment's cost...I don't know, cuz I have nothing else in the game to compare it with to figure out what would be expensive without being impossible. Letha knows, I'll leave it to her to keep that all straight."

x x x

Chapter 34: Judicandus Homo Reus

x x x

"Someone else was paying, and you chose clothes like this? Such a waste..." Judith sighed in mock despair over my lack of clothes shopping enthusiasm.

"Something wrong with my clothes?" I asked defensively, though I should have expected a reaction like this.

"No, nothing's wrong with them," Estelle was quick to assure me, "They're just... Well they're not very colorful," she tried to criticize tactfully.

Rita lost her patience, "She's brown, okay? Just go ahead and say it!"

"There's nothing wrong with that. I think I look pretty good in brown. And anyway, this shirt," I plucked at the turtleneck's sleeve, "is more like cream or beige."

"Brown is brown! It doesn't need any other names!"

"Mahogany, burnt umber, chestnut, sepia, sienna-"

"Knock it off already!"

"To be serious again," I smoothly switched off from teasing the short tempered mage, "it's not that I don't like more...fashionable clothes, but that's not the kind of stuff that holds up well when traveling." I looked over Judy and the princess as another thought occurred to me. "Speaking of which, I'm not sure how you two manage in your clothes. Especially you Estelle." The krytian's ensemble was of the jaw dropping persuasion rather than battle ready, and Estelle's outfit screamed nobility: aka, the least prepared of all of us. So why didn't they look more than just a bit weathered?

"Oh, I've been seeing a professional tailor in each city," the princess confessed brightly. "They make a new dress just like the one I'm wearing, and the old one is used to make clothes for people that can't afford them." I couldn't help staring at her. That was...actually very like her. Not only did it fit her growing up as a sheltered imperial candidate, but it also suited her generous personality that always wanted to help others.

So what did Judith do? I looked over at the scantily clad woman. You know, if she said her clothes just weren't enough of a target to hit in a fight, I'd accept that as truth. She shrugged at me, as if guessing what I was thinking. "I carry extras of what usually gets damaged. I'm very good at packing them so that they take up little space."

..._Don't tell me she has a black hole in a pocket or something. I rarely see more than one or two rips on _anything_ she wears_...

"Anyway," Yuri stopped us from getting any deeper into the girl talk. "We'll get some rest for the night, and then see if we can learn anything about Phaeroh in town tomorrow."

"Oh? Don't any of you boys have anything to say about Letha's new wardrobe?" Judith asked coyly. _Gyaaah, Judith!_

Yuri looked at us blankly, "Why should I?" _...He reeaally doesn't understand the psychology of a woman._

"U-um, I g-guess she looks...nice?" Karol sounded like he was trying to guess the correct answer on a pop quiz. And was terrified of getting it wrong.

Raven facepalmed and shook his head. "Jeez, yer both hopeless. This is how ya do it." He turned to me and dropped down to one knee and took my hand, bowing over it slightly. _WHU-?_ "Oh Letha my sweet," he practically oozed theatrical drama, "ya look as lovely as a bloomin' flower in spring!"

"O-oh! Um, thanks, that's actually really sweet," I was caught of balance. Being as it was Raven, I'd expected some perverted compliment or bad pick up line and had already been prepared to whack him in the head. Then I noticed something...he hadn't raised his head yet. And from the angle of his head and direction he was looking... I whacked him in the head after all. "Stop looking up Judith's skirt!"

"So that's how adults do it," Karol mused. Yuri sighed.

"I don't think you want to take the old man's advice on this..."

x x x

Rather than go straight to bed, I decided to go take a walk around the city for a bit. After being cooped up on a ship so long I wanted to enjoy the freedom of land. Though ironically I eventually found myself wandering down by the docks. Well, it was quieter than in the streets, and I'm the solitude loving type.

This meant I could hear the voices of people talking long before I saw them, and was completely unnoticed myself. It was near the pier where the _Fiertia_ was docked that I realized the voices were familiar.

"'- the people struggled to stand against the oncoming disaster. Its energies all but spent, humanity's hope seemed lost when a pair of siblings appeared. This brother and sister together fought the calamity, and saved the world from annihilation. The sister they called Child of the Full Moon. After the struggle, she remained with the earth. Her brother they called Brave Vesperia, and he ascended to the skies to watch over the world. The end.'"

"Wow, I guess Letha isn't our only storyteller. You went and gave our guild a name with a lot of baggage."

_Oopsie, didn't mean to start eavesdropping!_ I hurried off to leave Estelle and Yuri to their talk. I could remember the gist of what it should be, but manners are manners.

Finding another unoccupied (other than a dark and empty ship) dock, I took a seat and dangled my feet off the edge above the water. _Estelle's story is actually pretty close to the truth, if a bit short on the details. Wasn't -er, that should be- isn't Brave Vesperia the brightest star because it's not really a star? It's actually some weird space satellite or something (maybe made from blastia?) that's keeping the Adephagos sealed away. And a helluva lot closer than the other stars._

I stared up at the steadily shining 'star'. "Now just how did they get you up there anyway?" Maybe a rocket ship? No. Probably through the sacrifice of the Children of the Full Moon.

Ugh. Now I was depressed.

Music would cure my depression! Only I had left my stuff back at the inn, including my neglected mp3 player. Looking around very thoroughly I confirmed that there was no one within hearing range. Tilting my head back, I began to sing softly.

"_There are unsmiling faces in bright plastic chains_

_on a wheel in perpetual motion._

_And they follow the races that play out the games_

_with no show of an outward emotion._

"_And they think it will make their lives easier_

_for God knows up till now it's been hard..._

_But the game never ends when your whole world depends_

_on the turn of a friendly card._

_No the game never ends when your whole world depends_

_on the turn of a friendly card._

"_There's a sign in the desert that lies to the west_

_where you can't tell the night from the sunrise._

_And not all the king's horses and all the king's men_

_have prevented the fall of the unwise._

"_For they think it will make their lives easier_

_and God knows up till now it's been hard..._

_But the game never ends when your whole world depends_

_on the turn of a friendly card._

_No the game never ends when your whole world depends_

_on the turn of a friendly card._

"_But a pilgrim must follow in search of a shrine_

_as he enters inside the cathedral..."_

My voice broke into a yawn during the last line so I fell silent again. Even if I didn't have a complete set of memories, this song still carried a strong feeling of nostalgia. Despite the hopeless impression of the words I somehow found it to be comforting.

I fell backwards so that I was lying on the dock, cold stone slowly warming under my back as I stared up at the stars and the barrier. The barrier's internal light made it difficult to see any but the brightest stars, but at least it wasn't as obnoxious as the cities back home. _There's a trade off for everything. There are things I like better here, and there are things I really miss from back home... I hope I don't forget everything I loved, but maybe that would be a kindness. At this rate I may never see Earth again._

For once this thought wasn't accompanied by feelings of homesickness or anger. It was a calm, detached sort of acceptance that went deeper than intellectual acknowledgment. I really could be stuck here until I died. And even if I, by some miracle, lived through everything and even found all those heirloom pieces, I still may not have earned my ticket home. _Either Nevys will decide he still has a use for me and zap me over to yet another world, or he'll just leave me here to spite me_. Again, the knowledge sank in and was accepted. If that was how things would be, that's how they would be, but that was in the far off future still.

Yawning again, I decided it was time to head back for the night. But just as I was sitting up I heard a scream from the other end of the dock. "Eeek!" the sudden cry jolted me a bit, "H-help me... Someone, someone please help!" I scrambled up to my feet and rushed to see what the trouble was about.

I pulled up short when I saw not a familiar face, but a familiar _costume._ In game Yuri gets the Dark Enforcer costume if you follow a series of side quests about a vigilante who punished criminals in the dark of the night. Much like Yuri, which was a purposeful foil tactic by the game designers.

And on his knees before the dark vigilante, pleading for his life, was the first of the corrupted people the player has the privilege to see judged. A balding man on the pudgy side, wearing purple silk and too many rings on his fingers. His back was to me, and the vigilante (Clay...wasn't it?) was too intent on him to notice me standing in the empty ship's shadow.

"Not only do you team up with the tipsters to rip off innocent customers, but then you kidnap people who couldn't pay their debts and do away with them! You dirty piece of slime...this is what you deserve!" Clay's sword swept across from below, shining bright gold with aer, and cut down the con man. His dying shriek echoed in my ears long after it faded from the night.

Clay looked up, the suddenness of which suggesting he'd heard something, but now he was facing the other end of the dock. With a quick dash he ran off the docks, practically dissolving into the shadows thanks to his dark costume.

I realized I was shivering violently and hugged my arms in tight. "Cold blooded..." I murmured. Moving forward on legs that felt like the muscles had turned to gelatin, I stumbled forward and dropped to my knees besides the prone body. My hands quickly felt for a pulse, even as my eyes took in the long bloody gash opening his torso. It was deep, I could see flashes of white from bones in the wetness. Mercifully there wasn't enough light to make out what dark shapes were which organs...

The pulse my fingers found was weak, and even as I felt it fluttering ever so faintly I heard a last gurgling gasp, and then the pulse stopped beating. Even if I'd had Estelle's healing artes, I couldn't have done anything.

"Letha..."

I looked up, and saw Yuri had come up to stand on the body's other side. With the angle his head was at, looking down at me, I couldn't see his face. Gently, I placed the dead man's fleshy hand on the ground. "He's already gone."

"You wanted to save him?" Yuri's tone clearly held the question of 'why?' He had heard what Clay said as well as I had, and realized that we both knew this dead man probably deserved what he got and worse.

Even so... "Yes, if I could. His dying this way...bothers me." My eyes were pulled back down to the gruesome sight. "People can change. It may not be easy but it's still possible. All he needed was a reason to _want_ to change."

"Easier said than done. Some people never change, and will go one hurting innocent people unless someone stops them."

"And that's the really sad thing about this. Because this man," I indicated the corpse, "had to be stopped, someone else had to become a murderer.

"Self defense is one thing, but this was..." I trailed off as I finally remembered who I was talking to. Yuri. Yuri Lowell, who had killed Ragou. Even if I couldn't disagree with the need to stop the corrupted magistrate, by death if that was the only way, I had still called Yuri a murderer to his face. Saying 'that was different' would just be an excuse that I didn't even believe.

I resolutely kept my head down, eyes locked on my hands. My gloves and fingers were red and sticky from the man's blood.

"Letha, do you-" whatever Yuri was about to say (or ask) was cut off by the slap of several sets of running feet on stone and shouting. _Crap! Other people heard him scream!_ I froze like a deer in the road, but only for the second it took Yuri to grab my bloody hand and pull me up onto my feet.

When he tried to lead me from the dock, though, I pulled back against his grip. "They'll see us if we leave that way, and I don't want my face on a wanted poster. This way!'

With a shrug that I nearly missed as I turned around, Yuri followed me to the far end of the dock and jumped onto the empty ship with me. Which was not empty after all, but the only other person was a sailor snoring loudly from his cabin. He'd left the door open and I wrinkled my nose at the stench of alcohol.

We hid around the far side of the cabin, and heard the rhythmic rises and fall of conversation, just a bit too quiet to make out actual words, back where we'd just been. Probably Palestralle guild members, since their guild seemed to serve as law in Nordipolica and probably enforced it as well.

"And what do we do if they come to search this ship?" Yuri asked while trying to keep his voice down. It was a pointed reminder that the Palestralle members were between us and the way out of the docks.

I shrugged and whispered back, "Hold our breaths and hope there's no really big fishies in the water?"

"One of us really has to be cursed or something."

Despite the casual joke, or perhaps because of it, I began to feel guilty. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"This. It's my fault. If I hadn't gotten hung up on something I couldn't do anything about we wouldn't be in this mess now."

"Hey, it's no big deal. Like you said, we can't do anything about it now," meaning I shouldn't feel bad about the man's death or nearly making us prime suspects for the murder. The grumble of conversation got quieter so Yuri chanced a look around the corner. "There, see? They're leaving already so no harm done."

I just nodded mutely, eyes still downcast. He sighed. "Come on, let's get back before our luck gets us caught up in something else." I winced at that, and he sighed again.

Quietly so as not to disturb the sailor (though a herd of Rhybgaro could storm through and he'd probably sleep through it), we crossed the deck and hopped back down to the stone dock.. The body had been removed, but its place was still marked by the pool of blood. My feet faltered for a moment, but picked up the pace again before Yuri noticed me lagging behind.

The walk back to the coliseum and its inn annex was uncomfortably quiet. I had killed any conversation way in advance. I was the serial killer of small talk. Yeah, with thoughts like that it was no wonder I didn't want to open my mouth. And Yuri was probably thinking about my little speech earlier, and how it might relate to his own actions and how the rest of the group might see him. _Oooh boy, foot in my mouth..._

Karol met us just outside, and in his excitement overlooked the tense atmosphere between his two guild mates. "You guys! Come on, I found something really cool!"

"What is it captain?" Yuri humored him.

"A trophy!"

With no better explanation than that, Karol practically slammed back into the complex building. "What the heck kind of trophy must it be if he's so worked up about it?" I wondered aloud.

"I guess we'll just have to see." And we had to be quick on our feet to catch up to the boy and not lose him in the corridors. At the end we found ourselves staring at some weird cross between a trophy and a chef's hat.

"You guys gotta touch it!"

"Touch it? Ace, just what are you trying to pull and who put you up to it?"

"I'm not pulling anything. The others have already seen it!"

Yuri shrugged and finally picked up the trophy. Smoke suddenly spewed from the top and obscured both the swordsman and the screwed up cup. "What the...?"

"SO YOU HAVE FOUND ME YET AGAIN! WELL DONE!" A familiar voice that wasn't Yuri's came out of the smoke.

"Oh God, no!" I gasped. _Please don't let him be in the mood to cook fish!_

The smoke cleared to reveal the Wonder Chef in all his wacky glory. Huge golden frying pan on his back and all. "Today is a marvelous day!" He was still going on. "Many have proven themselves worthy of being my students in the study of the fine culinary arts!"

"He was really happy when I said I'd bring the rest of our group to see him," Karol told me in innocent cheerfulness. The boy must have forgotten again about the attempted fish rehabilitation incident.

_Why have I not already run away?_ I wondered to myself. As I couldn't think of a good reason I spun on my heel and tried to walk away _very_ quickly. "Waiiit!" The Wonder Chef called out desperately from behind me, and suddenly _tackled_ me to the floor! "You can't leave! Not until I impart my recipe for kebab sandwiches unto you!"

I stopped thrashing around and trying to elbow him in the nose. "Kebab?" I asked, daring to hope.

"Sandwiches!" he confirmed.

"No fish?"

"Never on a full moon! The lunar waves distort the flavor of all dishes that originate from the sea! Though it makes waterfowl especially tender." _What. The. Hell?_

"So no fish." Double checking.

"Not even fish shaped sandwiches."

"Uh huh. Alright, I can live with that." The Wonder Chef finally let go of his death grip on me, and then swept me and Yuri off down another corridor which probably had a kitchen at the end. My fellow cooking student had a very telling smirk on his face. "Breathe a single word, Lowell, and you'll regret it."

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"You were thinking about it."

x x x

After the lesson from Wonder Chef and a good night's sleep, the whole incident with the murdered man felt very distant and surreal. Easy to push from the front of my mind.

I was even in for a very pleasant surprise the next day. We had been walking the streets of Nordopolica, trying to find someone who might know something about Phaeroh. I was wondering how long until we bumped into 'Regaey' or if he would actively track us down, when I heard a man's voice calling my name.

Turning to see who it was, I nearly squealed in delight. "LUDWIG!" I leaped at the old veteran and caught him in a hug. He chuckled affectionately and returned the hug with a one armed squeeze. Still a bit awkward, but it was good enough for me. It had been so long since anyone had hugged me back...

"Let me get a good look at you," he said, holding me at arm's length. "You seem well enough."

"Do you mean my health or my choice in clothes?" I asked impishly.

"Hrm," he looked me over again seriously, but with a slight twinkle in his eye. "I suppose both.. At least with these clothes I won't have to beat back as many suitors." I snorted, remembering the line in his letter forbidding me from marrying Chase. Perhaps this was Arcas' influence?

For his own part, Ludwig was looking very good. Salt and pepper hair and beard neatly trimmed, dressed in oil treated leathers appropriate for the road and unexpected weather, and (most telling) his jian and dao were strapped to his hip and back respectively. Back at his home he never carried them around, leaving both in his room unless about to give me a lesson or go deeper into the surrounding woods than usual. But now they rode naturally in their sheathes, and he looked complete for the first time.

"You're Letha's uncle?" Estelle asked as the others caught up with my...rather abrupt detour. "We've heard a lot about you and your guild."

Ludwig let go of me as he studied the group in front of us. "Yes, and you must be the friends I've heard have been looking after my niece."

Ingrained training (from parents I could barely remember even on one of my good days) urged me to make introductions. When I got to Yuri, my 'uncle' squinted at the other swordsman. "Yes," he said slowly, "I can just barely see the resemblance to those poorly drawn posters."

Yuri cocked his head a bit at the reference. "Do you have a problem with your niece traveling with me?"

My concerned 'uncle' opened his mouth to respond but was beaten to the punch by Karol. "Y-Yuri's a good guy! He's a member of our guild, Brave Vesperia, and we're a guild for justice. Letha's a member too!"

Ludwig's eyebrows rose as he considered the tiny guild boss. "I suppose I must trust in my niece's judgment," he conceded. "And as I was about to say, the stories I heard while staying at a certain inn suggest she might be the one's who's a bad influence." He gave me a stern look that had me shuffling my feet sheepishly.

With a slight shake of his head he let it go. "But I did not expect you to join a guild during your journey. Weren't you searching for..." He stopped, perhaps realizing my friends might not be privy to that particular detail that even he didn't know everything about.

And I had started internal panic mode. Ludwig didn't know I was using Sophia's research as a cover up and excuse for my own agenda and oddity of a tattoo. "Er-yeah, I'm still looking for it," I said with a smile and slight laugh. "And I found some of Aunt Sophia's notes," I tried to put a slight emphasis on her name, hoping only Ludwig would catch it and get the message. "Hopefully they'll put me on the right track."

_Hey, since we're already on the subject_... I pulled Sophia's note case from my bag. "Thing is, I can't get it opened. Do you have any ideas?" He took the case when I held it out.

"Yes... I recognize this..." Ludwig murmured while running his fingers over the engraved name. "Though it never had a locking mechanism before. Still," he returned the case to me. "I'm sure Sophia took good care of the key. Perhaps you even know what it is already."

"What? You mean you know?" I gripped the case to my chest so tightly my knuckles turned white to match it.

"Perhaps," he allowed.

"Since when have you liked talking in riddles?" But Ludwig only ruffled my hair with another chuckle before walking away. I stuck my tongue out at his back.

"Well that sure was helpful," Rita said sarcastically.

"Rita," Estelle admonished her, glancing at me as a reminder that Ludwig was my family. The mage just crossed her arms stubbornly, not in the least repentant.

"Well at least a hint is better than nothing at all," Judith said optimistically. "If you think about what he said and about your aunt, perhaps you'll figure out how to open it."

"Yeah," even I didn't think I sounded convinced. After all, it's not like I really knew a lot about Sophia. I'd had two weeks with some of her books and a handful of stories from Ludwig, not an actual life time of being her niece. _Wait, shouldn't that make it easier? It was Ludwig who said I have the answer, and he knows about my situation._ Feeling like I was already a step closer to opening that stupid case, I became much more chipper about the whole matter.

"You started all of this!"

"Huh? What are you talking about!"

_It sounds like a fight._ Like sharks scenting blood, the crowd began to converge on a single point. This was the home of the coliseum; the people here all loved a good fight. Two men with swords, one with a broad curving blade I'd heard referred to as a scimitar sometimes (...though apparently not all scimitars look like this one) and the other I vaguely remembered was something called a koo...something. Kukri? Seemed about right. It stuck in my mind because the blade bends something like a boomerang.

And trying to stand between the two snarling men was Regaey. Looking ever so timid and helpless in stopping the fight. "B-both of you, s-stop this nonsense! M-making a scene like this out in f-front of everyone..."

"Mind your own business!" the man with the kukri snapped and raised his blade as if to hit Regaey with it. An action I'm sure nearly everyone missed as Yuri was in front of him in a flash, his own katana flashing up and diverting the shorter blade harmlessly to the side. The kukri man scowled at him. Which meant Yuri had successfully taken his attention away from Regaey.

"You'd better put that away before you hurt yourself," he warned. The gleam in his eye and slight curl to his mouth said clearly that he'd be just as happy if the thug wanted to try his luck.

The scimitar man realized his challenge was in danger of being usurped by the newcomer and was not pleased that he couldn't settle whatever grievance he had. "Who the hell are you!" The scimitar was raised up threateningly with Yuri's back as a very inviting target.

And he fell back in surprise as a spear swept up in front of his eyes. _No wait, that's a halberd. When did Judy upgrade her weapon?_ The man had been in no danger of being cut, but the shock of having a weapon pass in front of you that fast (it was in Judith's hands after all, meaning it was nearly a blur) can be even more startling than an actual strike. It didn't do anything to cool his temper though. "Hey!"

The beautiful krytian smiled serenely at him. "If I'm wrong for doing this, you'll have my apology later. But I think it's you two who are in the wrong, here."

"Damn it..." kukri man cursed. He and scimitar man shot heated glares at each other, but both seemed to have decided that having to fight through a pair of outsiders just to fight each other wasn't worth it. They turned away, taking different paths away. Most of the crowd dispersed along with them.

"Are you okay?" Estelle nearly materialized in front of the 'nice man' Regaey. _She's too good at doing that. Maybe the Children of the Full Moon have fairy blood! _ That would be a weird twist and surprisingly good explanation...

"Oh, th-thank you so m-much!" Regaey looked us over and 'recognized' us. "You were w-with M-madam President K-Kaufman..."

"We're the guild, Brave Vesperia!" Karol tooted our horn. No, he didn't have an actual horn, it's a figure of speech. Forget it...

"Come on, you're like a walking billboard!" Lucky for Karol, Rita was standing close enough to hit him when she said that. And I guess she was afraid of using fireball since Estelle was standing next to the boy and might get hit along with him.

"Heh heh, let him have his fun," said Judith indulgently.

"You're Regaey of Ruins' Gate, right?" _Wrong_. "You might want to work out a little before you go trying to stop any more fights. _Even more wrong! You're wracking up a losing streak here, Yuri. Where'd your annoying perceptive observation skills go now?_ It was probably a testament to Yeager's skill that even Yuri didn't seem the slightest suspicious of his intentions. Though I might also be a bit unfair to the swordsman on that one...there wasn't any reason why he should automatically try to judge the underlying motives and secrets of everyone we meet.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Th-thanks..." _The stuttering...Piglet..._ I had to struggle not to laugh at the image of Regaey dressed up as piglet and following Pooh Bear Alexei around. Actually, Alexei was probably Christopher Robin. _So who's Pooh...Cumore?_ Now _that_ was pure crack! "Oh, umm, th-there's a f-favor I wanted to ask of you..."

"Far be it for us to ignore a request from Ruins' Gate!" said Karol, sounding somehow both gracious and overly eager to please.

"Well, it depends on what it is," Yuri tempered the enthusiasm of our boss. "What did you want to ask us?"

"P-perhaps we could discuss this s-somewhere else... Could you come to the coliseum? W-we could talk about it there." And the timid old man jogged off on his own, nearly stumbling over his own feet before leaving view.

"Whatever he has to say, he doesn't want anyone else to overhear... Sounds pretty suspicious to me," said Raven as we all watched the archaeologist wannabe vanish inside the coliseum building's doors.

"I'd bet it has something to do with the Coliseum since that's where he wants us to meet," I hazarded to guess. Well, that's not really a guess since I already knew exactly what it was about. But I could make it sound less like prescience and more like a very thought out inference. "The coliseum's the city's main attraction, so it's not a great meeting place to talk about something in secret. If he's willing to risk a chance that people might hear...then it must be because there's a good reason for being in the coliseum." _That works right? It makes sense? Or am I imagining it?_

Well, the looks they were giving me were thoughtful instead of 'what the hell just came out of your mouth?' so it must have worked well enough.

"If Ruins' Gate recognizes us, it'll help improve our reputations as a guild..." Karol finally said.

"Get too greedy with jobs and you'll end up neglecting all of them," Yuri cautioned. "Our job for the moment..." he looked straight at the princess, "...is to look for Phaeroh and to escort Estelle."

"Yeah, you're right... I'll try to be more careful."

Estelle hesitated a bit before asking, "But couldn't we at least hear what he has to say first, and then decide whether or not to accept?"

Yuri rubbed his chin, "Yeah, maybe you're right..."

"If he asks too much, we'll just say no," Rita added. "We don't have the time to be getting wrapped up in more craziness." Was it just me, or was everyone eying Yuri, Estelle, and I when Rita said that. _Ahh, right. Yuri's cursed, I'm a trouble magnet, and Estelle practically throws herself at trouble._

Yuri probably noticed the looks as well, but didn't let them bother him. "Let's go and stop by the coliseum then. We can at least hear him out." Karol and Judith nodded, Raven gave a long suffering sigh, and Repede yawned from where he'd curled up on the ground ages ago.

So back the way we came to meet up with Regaey at the coliseum. And then throw Yuri to the gladiators. _This should be interesting to see_, I grinned with anticipation.

x x x

_**What Are We Here For?**_

_Estelle: A town with a coliseum sure attracts a lot of different kinds of people, doesn't it?_

_Judith: Yes, people are here for all sorts of reasons. Some come to fight, some come to watch._

_Rita: Then there's people like us, too._

_Estelle: I wonder what other people think when they see us on the streets?_

_Judith: Well, I'd say they think we're here for the fights..._

_Rita: Maybe for you and Yuri, but I couldn't imagine Estelle as a gladiator if my life depended on it._

_Karol: What about me?_

_Rita: Hmm...a lost child?_

_Karol: Hey!_

_Letha: And me?_

_Rita: Probably a tourist that doesn't know what she's doing._

_Letha: That...sounds about right..._

_Raven: Well then, what about ol' ... Nevermind. I know where this is goin'._

x x x

Regaey was waiting for us in the same room where Karol had found the Wonder Chef trophy. Which was conspicuously absent now. I coughed a little and went along with everyone else to the corner where Regaey was waiting with his hands folded timidly in front of him.

"Ahh, you have c-come. M-my thanks to you all. Now, please come with me."

"Relax. Nobody's said we've decided to take the job yet," Yuri told him as we followed the Ruins' Gate boss (and Leviathan's Claw boss in disguise...) to a more out of the way section of the coliseum. "That can wait till you tell us what this is all about."

"A-all right. I would like you to s-stop the man who is trying to t-take over Palestralle."

"Take over...?" Karol exclaimed in shock. "This city?"

Judith folded her arms. "Hm, the plot thickens," she said in a relishing tone much like my feelings when reading a particularly interesting book.

"Why are you so interested in stopping them, though?" Rita inquired. Having been the type to look out for herself (and her blastia) and no one else for so long, she had yet to fully switch to another way of thinking. Or at least to understand why people, including herself at times, did something so illogical. "It's not your guild, so why not just let it be?"

"Y-you see, we have been commissioned by Palestralle to investigate the r-ruins at the coliseum." _...And you were probably hired by Cumore to trip up Flynn whenever possible._

"Huh. Yeah, come to think of it, this city's supposed to be super old," Karol looked around at the architecture of the corridor we were in, which was a good example of this. I don't know what I'd compare it to...something Roman? But that usually makes me think of pillars and the like, which this area lacked...

"If s-someone else took c-control, it would be discourteous to the Entelexeia." I frowned at Regaey slightly, starting to feel bothered by something he'd said...or was about to say.

"Entele...what?" Karol had to ask.

"Ah, oh yes. M-my apologies," Regaey spluttered self consciously, pulling off his glasses and wiping them with trembling fingers. "...D-do you not know of them?" He placed the glasses back on his nose, though nearly dropped them in the process. "I have heard that th-they are the ancient race who built this town, and a-allow the guilds to b-be here."

_There. There it is. 'Allow the guilds to be here' implies that the 'ancient race' hasn't died out yet. Why hasn't anyone else picked up on that?_ But the dialogue continued as expected, without any outward signs that the others registered that this ancient race continued to exist.

"An ancient race, huh?" Yuri repeated thoughtfully, then frowned slightly. _Wait, did he get it?_ But he only glanced at me for a brief second and didn't press for details.

Instead it was Karol who spoke up again. "Like the Kritya?" Of course that made everyone look at Judith, who just smiled a bit at the attention and brought her hand up to swipe a strand of hair back behind a pointed ear.

"Okay, so then who's this guy who's tryin' ta rock the boat here?" Raven reminded us about the real point of what we'd been discussing.

"H-he's the champion of the coliseum." And thus came the false explanation about the champion planning to use his victory streak to get close to Belius and kill her. Which was ridiculous, because I knew it was actually Flynn we were talking about. Though I couldn't remember what exactly the point was of him entering the coliseum...well, as the champ they couldn't chase him out even though he was a captain of the knights, but why did he need to be in Nordopolica? Except for the crap that would happen later...

The others were hooked at the point where Regaey mentioned that the champion was backed by Leviathan's Claw, which led us to the roundabout conclusion that Cumore was involved. _Ha haa..._

And naturally, we accepted the job to join and beat the champion. Though Judith again curbed Estelle's enthusiasm by pointing out that she was getting off track again. And asked the question, 'what is it that you really want to do?' making the girl stop and think silently for a long time. But since Judy was the first one who outright said we'd take the job, this time she didn't sound like the bad guy for making the princess question if it was right to help people.

"So then, who'll be entering the tournament?" Raven asked pragmatically.

Karol frowned and looked around at our group, "Well, we can't ask Estelle, Rita, or Raven to participate. After all, this is a job Brave Vesperia will be doing fr Ruins' Gate."

"They probably wouldn't accept a dog, even if Repede is capable of beating half their guild on his own," I added, earning a prideful bark from the hound.

"Okay, so..." Rita stood with hands on her hips while eyeballing the choices that round of eliminations left.

"No hard feelings, but I'd rather not have to go up against Judy," Yuri put out there.

"Hm?" Judith pouted playfully. "And I was just getting ready to enter. Oh well, I suppose I can sit this one out."

"The boss here shouldn't have to trouble himself with this," the swordsman continued, giving the still at times cowardly ace an excuse to gracefully decline from entering. There was a clear moment when we could all see the relief on the boy's face. So all that was left was my excuse for not joining and- "So it's up to Letha and me then, right?"

"Wait, I have to join too?"

"Well, ya'd have better chances of gettin' all the way ta the champion if more than one person joins," Raven pointed out oh so helpfully. I shot him a look that told him I didn't appreciate it.

"Do any of you seriously think I'd get that far?"

"Well..." Meaning 'no'.

"Even if you just beat one opponent, that'll still make it easier for me," Yuri said, "and anyway, I kind of want to see how you'll do."

"See how I'll do? What's that supposed to mean?" Even as I asked a thought occurred to me, "...Aikido?"

"Well, it's not like these are death matches."

Goddammit.

x x x

"The Turn of a Friendly Card" by Alan Parsons Project. Is there anyone who knows them? It would make me so happy if someone did!

And aww yeah, did anyone guess I'd pull that piece of side quest in? Accessblade, when you get around to reading that part, I'm hoping it makes up for Letha missing the whole scene where Yuri killed Ragou. I told ya I had plans down the road for this!

And yeah, there's a point where you have the hundred man melee, right? And Repede is also able to join, right? Does that actually make sense to anyone from a realistic point of view? It doesn't to me, and I also wanted a reason for why Repede doesn't also fight here. Because a little detail like that was actually bothering me. Yesss.


	35. Chapter 35: Familial Ties

Too many fight sequences are tiring to write and to read. So this ends earlier in the coliseum event than it otherwise might have.

My goodness, where is all this art coming from~? Two more pictures up on Deviantart. Only one is actually Letha! And urrrgh, the actual pictures both look better than what's online...especially the one of Letha... But there's another piece of fanart, this time from KatherosLibra.

http: / katheros libra. deviantart. com/#/ d3cbc3r (Remove the spaces. If it still won't work, check my favorites in my Devianart account.)

Angelic:

Pairing? Where? I have no idea what you mean. (:P)

Stuff does happen in the coliseum (can anything ever go smoothly when Brave Vesperia's around?) but you're probably thinking of another coliseum related event that happens later. And I have much to smile about with these upcoming chapters.

...

**:D**

x x x

Chapter 35: Familial Ties

x x x

"Hoo boy... Ho boy, oh boy, oh boooy..."

"You're gonna wear yourself out before the fight even starts if you don't settle down."

"I can't help it! People are going to be _watching_ me!" I tugged on my braid fitfully again as I made another turn in my nervous pacing. Yuri was leaning against a wall, too restless to sit as well, but in his case it was from excitement. He couldn't wait to get out there and challenge the coliseum champion. Whereas I wished I could run the other way.

"Just fight like you normally do and forget about them. All those people, watching you, waiting to see if you have what it takes..."

"You are deliberately not helping!" He smirked at the finger I jabbed in his direction. Huffing, I wrung my hands for a moment before I gave in and resumed both pacing and hair pulling. "I can't forget unless I find something to distract me!" Another yank at my hair, followed by another turn.

Yuri silently watched me pace the length of the waiting room a couple more times. "So," he began, perhaps taking pity on me and trying to come up with a distraction. "What do you think Duke wanted to talk to Belius about?"

When Yuri and I had finished registering and were about to enter the gladiators only section of the building, we'd passed by Belius' room. There'd we'd seen Duke being turned away by the guard at the door.

_Earlier:_

"_I'm sorry, but the Duce is not currently receiving visitors. Please come back later." I looked up at the landing to see who was trying to talk to Belius. I was little more than halfway up the flight of steps so I couldn't make the person out, but Yuri was in the lead and apparently recognized whoever it was._

"_Hey, we keep bumping into each other. Must be fate."_

"_...There is no such thing." My GOD it's the Epicly Deep Voice of Duke! Gives Christopher Lee a run for his money!_

"_Maybe not. What brings you to a place like this?"_

"_I have come with tidings for the age old master of this city." Heeey, it's another freebie giveaway of the fact that the city's 'ruler' isn't actually a human._

"_Belius?" Yuri asked in surprise. Duke made no sign of confirmation, but there wasn't really anyone else he could have meant. "Are you on business with a guild or something...? ...Probably not, right?"_

_Duke's forehead crinkled ever so slightly at the thought. "It is nothing so vulgar as that..." he said with distaste._

"_Vulgar...?" Yuri laughed slightly, as if Duke had told a poorly executed joke. "All right, so what kind of noble errand are you on?"_

"_I need not answer that." Having had enough of Yuri's interrogation, Duke swept down the stairs past us, white hair and black coat flaring out dramatically. And none of it done on purpose._

"_Don't tell me you're out to save the world or something." Duke paused, his boot making a slight click as it landed on the same step instead of descending to one lower. He gave the younger swordsman a sidelong glance and frowned a bit. Probably because Yuri sounded like he was making a joke out of Duke's overly serious composure. Because Yuri totally was. And Duke probably found very little humor in the world anymore._

_Not wanting to dignify Yuri's flippant attitude with a response, Duke silently resumed his descent. When he passed me, he didn't actually slow at all, but he might have frowned a bit again. Then again, I could have imagined that, or it might not have had anything to do with me. It shouldn't have anything to do with me._

"_Man, what's with that guy?" Yuri wondered aloud. I couldn't think of anything to tell him that didn't have to do with things I really shouldn't know about._

_:End Flashback._

Yank, "I dunno. Maybe he needed to see a man about a giant, talking chicken." Turn.

"A giant...? You think he wanted to ask about Phaeroh?"

Turn, "Why not? It's why we wanted to talk to her anyway."

"Maybe..." Turn and yank. "Still thinking about the audience?"

"_YES._"

The swordsman closed his eyes and let his head drop back to rest against the stone wall, as if watching me was tiring _him_ out. "Alright then, how about your uncle?"

"What about him?" Yank.

"For someone who hadn't seen his niece in a few months, he didn't seem all that interested in sticking around for a chat." Pause in my pacing and hair yanking. "You mentioned you're not really related, but he is the one who raised you."

"He...must have had somewhere he needed to be."

"Uh huh..." Yuri was not convinced. He was following dangerous trains of thought and my excuse _was severely lacking in convincing capabilities._

_Quick! Plan B!_ "AH!" I cried suddenly, jarring him so that his eyes shot open and he straightened.

"What's wrong?" I clapped my hands together and gave him a look of utter distress.

"I haven't named my dao!" Perfect moment for an anime fall or sweatdrop the size of a golf ball. "I didn't name the last one either, or my daggers!"

"...Are you serious?"

"I know!" I purposefully interpreted his incredulous reaction incorrectly. "Me, of all people, forgetting to name her weapons!" I hung my head as if shamed.

The silence coming from Yuri's wall clearly said, 'What the hell is going through her head right now?'

I unbelted my dao from my waist and held it up solemnly. "I shall now christen thee...Oberon! Yuri, you're witness to this momentous occasion."

"Now you're just messing with me."

"Yes. Yes I am. Still naming the sword Oberon." I strapped the newly dubbed Oberon to my left hip again. "Now what to call my daggers..."

"Can you even tell them apart?" he asked curiously, going along with my eccentricities.

Pulling both smaller blades from their sheathes, I ran a critical eye over edges, handguards, and grips. Before the polish and sharpening they at least had different scratches, but even then... "I don't have a clue. So I'll call them both Gemini! Gemini Left and Gemini Right, depending on which hand it's in!"

This declaration was met with another eloquent silence. "...You're pretty good at changing topics." _Craaap!_

"Wh-what are you talking about? I'm honestly bothered by this!" I felt the corners of my nervous smile twitching as the all too perceptive man watched me with narrow eyes.

"That's the thing, I don't get why it bothers you," Yuri twisted my words around to hit the nail on the head. "Talking about your uncle, I mean." He shrugged a bit, "No one's going to force you, so why are you getting all jumpy when the subject comes up?"

At a loss for words, I could only stare at Yuri for a moment before my eyes dropped to fix on a point in the stone floor. Even when someone came to fetch my fellow Brave Vesperia guild member for the first fight I barely noticed.

Were all my suspicions just in my head? Was my experience with the fairies and my foreknowledge of the game combining to make me unjustifiably paranoid? Either way, I was doing my friends a major disservice by returning their trust with fear and intentional misdirection. _But I can't help it...can I?_

It occurred to me in a flash of insight that my conviction that being from a different world was such a deep, dark secret, one that warranted guarding at every turn, was absurdly egotistical of me. So what if I was born in a different world? That really made no difference in the lives of any of the people I'd met here. What was dangerous was my knowledge of the future in the form of a video game, and I was being ridiculously overprotective of that fact as well. I knew these people were real, not fictional in the least, and even the most dangerous ones I could meet wouldn't even know enough to question me about a video game called Tales of Vesperia. Why should they even think I know their future?

_And I only know _one_ possible future. Anything can happen, by my doing or anyone else's, that could change everything I think I know_.

Feeling very humbled, I sat down on one of the wooden benches provided. I wasn't sure how my personal revelation changed things, or if it even changed anything. But with a fight to prepare for I couldn't be distracted by getting caught up in hypothetical thoughts. I sat with my back straight but not stiff, rested my hands palm up in my lap, and closed my eyes to concentrate on my breathing. It took awhile, but I managed to soothe my heart and mind with the slow rhythm of my own breathes.

"Ma'am?" I looked up and blinked while my eyes tried to adjust to the light again. Someone was standing in front of me, I couldn't clearly make out what he looked like, but from his voice he was male and probably younger than me. "Ma'am, I'm to inform you that your first round will be starting shortly."

"A-ah." How much time had passed? "Could you tell me who won the first fight?"

"Uh," the boy seemed uncomfortable, "I'm really not supposed to tell the other participants..."

"Alright, then don't worry about it," hands on knees, I pushed myself off the bench and onto my feet and followed the boy out of the waiting room. He bowed when we reached a corridor that shone with natural daylight at the other end, gesturing for me to go on alone. I could hear the chaotic rumble of hundreds of voices outside.

I swallowed nervously, discovering that my throat and mouth had gone dry, and stepped out into the arena.

"And here we have another newcomer, also from the guild Brave Vesperia!" the announcer was introducing me to the screaming crowd in the stands. "Will this sweet looking young lady prove as formidable as her guildmate? Everyone please welcome Letha Vitae!" I waved a bit timidly at the crowd, squinting a bit to see if I could pick out my friends. '_Sweet looking'? Oh well, at least with an introduction like that I can guess that Yuri must have made a good impression. So he must have won._

You had to win three rounds in order to reach the champion, Flynn, without losing. Meaning it was a simple layout starting with eight competitors. After the first round of fights, there'd be four left. After the second, two would be left. Then after one more fight they'd call Flynn out. What made it challenging for the fighters was we didn't know who our opponents would be.

Since Yuri and I had registered together in the name of Brave Vesperia, the organizers hadn't seen a point in separating us before, but everyone else was kept in their own private waiting room. That way we wouldn't know anything about the opponent or their fighting style.

We weren't allowed to watch the other fights either, but I figured if Yuri meant what he'd said about wanting to see how I'd fare with aikido, he'd find a way.

A pink and white spot waving at me, combined with a satchel bag being spun around in the air, helped me locate the others easily. I smiled and waved as Rita smacked Karol in the head and made him put his bag back down.

"Today her first opponent is the magic sword master with the reputation of being a lady killer," _Eh? Doesn't that sound familiar?_ "Parris Corvin! Will he be her last opponent as well?" Well I'm not sure what I was expecting from that, but certainly not what stepped through the other entrance of the arena.

He...what's the best way to describe him? He reminded me of Maximillian Pegasus from YuGiOh. But revamped for a fantasy game. Long silver hair that did not look natural (it didn't match his brown eyebrows...), overly decorated armor, and a _rose_ in one hand. _Those women must have laughed to death at the sight of him_.

"Come now, my sweet lady!" _Why are they calling me that? These guys really don't know me at all_, "Such a delicate young thing shouldn't be playing around in such a dangerous place! Give up now, and we can put this behind us as we explore our new love!" All the while he flourished the rose around, gesticulating so much a petal flew off and fluttered to the ground.

"...I suddenly have a very strong urge to punch you in the face," I told him.

"Who will win? The feisty young woman," _I'm 'feisty' now? I guess he heard me..._ "or the balanced fighter? Begin!"

Parris drew his sword, a surprisingly simple looking blade of dull gray. Unlike his armor, its only decoration was a red jewel set into its pommel. In response I drew Oberon and Gemini Left. _...Haa, maybe I shouldn't have named these? Too late now!_ The dao should help me stay on even terms with his sword's reach, but once I got in close enough the dagger would have an advantage over the other blades. Settling into my ready stance, more like aikido's homni than the fencing en guard, I waited for Parris to make the first move.

The man moved abruptly, lunging forward to drive his sword at me, light flashing of its red jewel. He was so quick I reacted only out of surprised reflex, batting his sword aside with Oberon. My dao smacked against his blade more strongly than it needed to for a deflection, so I couldn't bring it back in to guard in time when his sword was suddenly driving towards me again.

I moved my back foot so that my body turned enough for the sword to slip past me. I was still vulnerable, so before he could reverse the sword's momentum I slipped around behind him. If one of my hands had been free instead of holding something...

The thought was interrupted when the gray sword came around from the other side faster than I'd expected, Parris practically spinning in place like a top. This time I jumped away to the side to avoid it, putting more distance between us. Parris was wobbling a bit on his feet, as if the spin had made him dizzy, but his sword arm remained steady as it pointed the blade in my direction.

Instead of trying to close the distance again he cut his blade through the air from side to side, jewel flashing in the light again. From its tip appeared a blue line of water that whipped out towards me. _Efff, there's the magic part of his fighting!_ There wasn't time to dodge to the side, dodging backwards wouldn't help, so instead I went down. Curling my back foot under me I fell easily into an intentional back fall like I had so many times during practice. Lying on my back, I saw the water flash by above me and felt a few drops splash across my face.

Even as I watched the water pass by I was moving again, swinging my legs up into the air as my spine curved. My feet swung through the air, I smiled wickedly as I felt one boot connect with something soft and solid that grunted at the impact, and I used the momentum from my own kick to roll backwards. I was back on my feet, rising up from a crouch, and grinning again as I saw Parris doubled over with one arm wrapped around his stomach.

But his sword arm was still steady, the point still homing in directly towards me. Before he'd even finished recovering from my kick his arm was diving towards me again. _This...this is definitely familiar. But not in the way I first thought_. I used Oberon and Gemini to block and deflect his attacks while further observing the pattern.

Sure there's the magic wielding swordsman that everyone expects to show up in a fantasy story sooner or later. But there's also the lesser used, and usually exists mainly for comedy relief, swordsman who uses a magic sword. Usually, as I'd noted, it was the sword that knew how to fight, and the person using it was a novice only following the sword's lead. How important this archetype was to the story usually depended on whether the sword was sentient or not.

Parris fought with the same hallmarks as the phony sword masters with swords that had no personal will. Even though his blade was constantly pressing me back with a barrage of attacks that didn't leave an opening for a counter, his form was sloppy. His footwork was all over the place and there were many holes in his guard. His sword was just moving fast enough that I hadn't had an opportunity to take advantage of that. If he'd had a faster opponent than me, Parris probably would have lost already.

_Well, he's gonna lose now anyway_, I fell back again as he whipped water magic at me again. He didn't run into my back fall's follow up kick again, but instead shot a series of fireballs at me from his sword's tip. Each time the red jewel flashed.

The first scorched the ground where I'd just been. "Pfft! Those aren't anywhere near as good as Rita's!" I taunted while throwing myself to the side to dodge the rest. At the same time, I tucked first my dagger and then dao back into their respective sheathes.

"Letha has put away her weapons! Could this mean she's giving up?" I heard the announcer, who'd presumably been talking the whole time but I'd somehow managed to ignore.

"No! Don't let that third rate mage wannabe beat you!" I heard a cry shrill with anger from the audience. "I'll roast your ass if you lose!"

"As if," I growled while darting in towards Parris again. He looked surprised, but his sword automatically moved to throw something like Stone Blast at me. I was too close to dodge properly, so was hit straight on by the barrage. But none hit my face, my body was turned to present less of a target, in homni, and none of the rocks were bigger than my fist. So I gritted my teeth and ignored the rocks battering my chest and arms.

Seeing as the attack didn't have the desired effect (..._can that sword even see or register anything?_) it stopped the magical attack and tried stabbing at me before I could use my proximity to follow through on my threat to punch Parris in the face. Which was happily what I wanted. I can't throw a punch worth crap. And aikido demands your opponent be the one who attacks first.

Just like at the start of the fight, I adjusted my footing so that the sword slipped past me. This time I had both hands free to use kotegaeshi, with which I grabbed and manipulated his wrist in a way that he found himself falling to his knees as an involuntarily reaction and releasing his grip on the magic sword. Now I was the one holding the sword, and I spared no time in stabbing it point first into the ground as deep as I could. It vibrated and the jewel flashed several times, but otherwise could do nothing.

"Eep!" Parris squeaked as I still happened to have a grip on him with one hand. And as he foolishly hadn't used my momentary preoccupation with the sword to try and pull away, I returned my full attention to the sickening 'ladies' man'.

One hand on his wrist, another at his elbow (very considerately holding it in a way that minimized any chance of permanently hurting him) I turned and stepped forward in the familiar technique that had him stretched out on the ground with a mouthful of dirt. And to keep him from getting back up, I dropped down to kneel next to him with one knee placed firmly up against his ribs. It's amazing how effective this is at keeping someone down if you're doing it right. And even more amazing is the next part, which I hadn't gotten the hang of yet.

"You should probably relax," I told him cheerfully while slightly adjusting my grip on his wrist and arm, "I'm still not sure how this part is supposed to go, and if you fight back I might end up dislocating your arm." I began moving his arm in a circular motion, and felt pretty sure that I was, in fact, doing it wrong.

He cried out in fear and pain, "St-stop! Let me go!"

"Are you sure? This is actually supposed to be very good for blood circulation. When it's done right..." Another circular motion.

"Ow-ow-oww! I give up! You win! Just please stop!" I grinned and let him go. I grinned even more when he scrambled to his feet, and I saw his long silver hair was askew, revealing it was a wig. He ran off, not even stopping to retrieve his magic sword.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but it seems to be victory for Letha Vitae!"

There was wild cheering, and I felt nearly blown away as I finally fully registered the noise level in the coliseum. How did I manage to block it out before? Awkward with self consciousness, I nervously smoothed my hair back in place and made some sort of bobbing motion that might have been interpreted as a small bow or an overenthusiastic nod. Then as quickly as I could without breaking into a full out run I exited the arena.

"Oh _Jeez_us, I don't wanna go out there again!" I wailed once safely inside.

x x x

_**Feisty**_

_Yuri: Hey, nice job! You seemed a bit unsure at first, but then really pulled through._

_Letha: Ugh. You were watching after all..._

_Yuri: Now that you've won your first fight, the rest should be a snap._

_Letha: Dammit, I should have lost! Then I'd be done already!_

_Yuri: ...Oh come on. You don't need to pretend._

_Letha: Huh?_

_Yuri: You say you don't want to fight, but once you get out there you'll be the "feisty young woman" again and make the poor guy cry._

_Letha: ...Next time I'll go kick that announcer's ass._

_Yuri: That's more like it!_

x x x

"I fought with some weirdo with an ax who kept yelling his own name."

"Really? How did he fight?"

"I dunno, I beat him before he could do anything else."

"Ah ha ha... Somehow I don't doubt it..." I'd been escorted back to my waiting room, which was still empty. Some time later the deviant swordsman snuck back in on his own. Which had me wondering how Yuri'd managed to give his own escort (he must have had one too) the slip in the first place. Taking a seat on the other side of the room, he lost no time in filling me in on how the other fights had gone.

"And then the fight after mine and before yours had some weirdo who kept talking about starfish and this really pompous guy. The pompous one was the winner, so he'll be the one I fight next."

"Think you'll be alright against him?"

"Heh, he hardly looked like anything more than a warm up."

"Awfully sure of yourself, aren't we mister Lowell?" I teased. "Be careful you don't get too cocky and let some nobody beat you. You'll hurt LeBlanc and the Schwann Brigade's feelings!"

"And then they'd have to chase some other poor sap all over the place." We laughed, and the joking around helped relieve the prefight tension that I'd been struggling with again. It wasn't as bad as before, but I was still plenty nervous. Whoever I fought next would have already managed to win one fight, which meant he wouldn't be a poor excuse for a fighter like Parris had.

Feeling like I was cheating, but figuring it was too late to be worrying about that, I asked, "So, who do I fight next? You stuck around long enough to watch the last fight, right?"

The laughter dissolved from Yuri's expression, replaced by concern. "Actually...I wasn't sure I should tell you this, but you'll find out soon enough. It's probably better if you have time to get over it now."

"You're making me nervous..." _Goddammit, don't tell me it's Birdman or someone else who's apparently out for my blood._ The list couldn't be very long, certainly not as long as the one Yuri had, but it would be such a pain...

"The winner of the last fight was your uncle."

It took a moment for what he'd said to really sink in, and then it felt like I'd forgotten how to breathe. Then I started to laugh, a little wheezily thanks to the deficient air in my lungs. "You're...you're kidding...right?"

"Nope. ...Are you okay?"

"..."

"...Hey! Wake up!" Yuri had crossed the room and was waving his hand in front of my face. It startled me enough to snap me out of my daze. "Jeez, fighting him can't be that bad, can it?"

"You mean other than the fact that I'm guaranteed to lose?" I deadpanned.

He leaned against the wall my bench was pushed up against. "As long as you try your best then it doesn't matter if you win or lose-"

"-It's pretty damned weird to hear _you_ saying that-"

"-_And_ maybe you'll even beat him," he plowed on, ignoring me. "You won't know if you just give up."

"...You're right. I know all that too. But..." My head sank as I ended up staring down at my feet again.

"Well, I guess I can't really say I understand how you feel," Yuri said, his voice taking on its casual 'I'm trying to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling in the air' tone. "I don't remember my own parents, after all, so I don't know what it's like to have to fight a family member."

"O-oh, I'm sorry... I didn't know," I said a bit lamely. I was trying to think of what I'd say if I hadn't already known Yuri grew up without a family, and realized it sounded weak and compulsory. So I tried again with, "But...there must have been someone you cared about...like family." _...Ludwig isn't my real family either, but...I really feel indebted to him, and look up to him. Like he were always my uncle, and I'd only just finally met him._

"Well yeah, there's all the people from the Lower Quarter who worked together to raise me. I was probably more trouble than it was worth."

"I'm sure that's not how they see it," I smiled, remembering the scene near the beginning of the game when a whole crowd of people helped cover Yuri and Estelle's escape from Zaphias.

"I'm serious, they probably all had a party after I left." He punched me lightly in the arm when I snickered at the image of a 'Hooray! He's Gone!' banner put up over the fountain. "There was an officer in the Knights that I looked up to... I suppose he was the closest thing to a father figure I ever had. Never had to fight him though, so that's no help here..." ..._Oh. Maybe he's talking about that older knight in First Strike. His name was...Nyren, or something along those lines._ I was touched that Yuri was even remembering painful memories like that in an attempt to understand how I felt.

"What about Flynn? He's your best friend, right? And you've fought with him before...knowing you two," I hastily added. Just in case I wasn't actually around for any conversations about them fighting or something... It was a bit hard to remember sometimes.

"Yeah, we've fought tons of times since we were kids. And he always won. He's like the annoying brother you hate to lose to, because you look up to him." He shot me a look, "Don't tell him I said that."

"My lips are sealed," I promised, miming a zipping motion across my grinning mouth. "Though my silence is gonna cost you."

"Extortionist."

"I wonder if Flynn would consider you his hopeless big brother, or maybe his cute little brother..."

"Dammit, you fight dirty."

"Come to think of it, I swore vengeance on you for the seduction incident back in Heliord..."

"Fine, fine..."

"I expect payment in the form of chocolate in the near future." God_damn_ I missed chocolate. It was a luxury I hadn't been able to afford for a long time. "And I'm still going to get even for Heliord."

"Just what did Ludwig teach you?" the last word had barely left Yuri's mouth when the door opened and a young Palestralle boy stuck his head in.

"The next round of fights is about to begin. Mister Lowell needs to come with me for the first fight..."

"Well, looks like it's my turn again," Yuri pushed off from the wall and strode towards the door. "Don't go getting yourself all worked up again," he called back over his shoulder before going out the door. I noted with a wry smile that behind the boy were two burlier Palestralle guards that had apparently been added to Yuri's escort. They must not like having him wandering off to spy on the other fights like that.

My amusement at the reactions to Yuri's antics didn't last for long once I was alone. I began fidgeting in my seat, playing with the end of my braid and bouncing my left knee restlessly. "Need a distraction, _now_," I mumbled and started pawing through my bag. I'd brought it to the coliseum, though had left it in the waiting room during my fight. I wasn't allowed to bring it in the arena, use of items actually weren't allowed during the fights, but I wanted to make sure it was nearby...

From the hidden inner pocket I fished out my mp3 player. I untangled the cord and stuck the ear buds in my ears, then threaded the cord under my turtleneck top. With the player hidden under my shirt, no one who came in unexpectedly should notice anything as long as I kept my hands over my ears. With elbows planted on knees to make that look more natural, I pressed the power button and hit the skip forward button a few times looking for a more fast paced song.

"_Who's there knocking at my window?  
The owl and the Dead Boy  
This night whispers my name  
All the dying children"_

Ah, "Escapist" by Nightwish. One of the songs they released after they needed to replace their old singer. Epic band, love them both before and after the singer change.

_"Virgin snow beneath my feet  
Painting the world in white  
I tread the way and lose myself into a tale_

_"Come hell or high water  
My search will go on  
Clayborn Voyage without an end_

_"A nightingale in a golden cage  
That's me locked inside reality's maze  
Come someone make my heavy heart light  
Come undone, bring me back to life  
_

"_A nightingale in a golden cage  
That's me locked inside reality's maze  
Come someone make my heavy heart light_

_It all starts with a lullaby_

_"Journey homeward bound  
A sound of a dolphin calling  
Tearing off the mask of man  
The tower, my sole guide_

_"This is who I am  
Escapist, paradise seeker  
Farewell, now time to fly  
Out of sight, out of time, away from all lies_

_"(A nightingale in a golden cage  
That's me locked inside reality's maze)_

"_A nightingale in a golden cage  
That's me locked inside reality's maze  
Come someone make my heavy heart light  
Come undone, bring me back to life_

"_A nightingale in a golden cage  
That's me locked inside reality's maze  
Come someone make my heavy heart light  
It all starts with a lullaby_

" _A nightingale in a golden cage  
That's me locked inside reality's maze  
__Come someone make my heavy heart light  
Come undone, bring me back to life__"_

As the singer drew out "_Nightingale_" one last time I regretfully started to power down my player again. I rarely had a chance to listen to my music anymore, it was agonizing to suddenly cut myself off. _Dang, I'm a music addict suffering from withdrawal. And who knows how long I can make the batteries for this thing last_.

I'd slipped the piece of Earth technology back into my bag just before the door was flung open. I jumped a bit in my seat and looked up, startled at the energy used since all the coliseum employees had been more reserved.

"Y-you!" I jumped up, my bench rocking violently. It would have fallen over if not for being caught between me and the wall.

"Me!" agreed Alastor with a broad smile. He was still wearing the weird blue-purple coat, but his wings were gone and the glasses were back. Were they part of his human disguise or something? "I do hope you'll forgive me for interrupting your preparations for your fight, I promise to be on my way in just a moment."

"Just a moment my foot, you're not leaving until I say you can!" I drew both Gemini and rushed him. Damn fairy man would probably disappear on me again if I gave him the chance.

I struck with Gemini Right, not trying for anything lethal, but trying to aim for his shoulder. He simply leaned back to avoid the strike, but I didn't care much. I took the chance to hook a foot behind his ankles and kicked back while my hands each went up to shoulder height to push forward. Having already put himself off balance, my attack was enough to encourage his body to continue its motion and fall hard to the floor. He landed hard and I could hear the rush of air suddenly expelled from his lungs.

Quickly, I dropped down to kneel over Alastor and hold Gemini Right to his throat. He coughed as he found his breath again, and then the cough turned into a laugh. "Come now, my dear, this isn't nearly as threatening as you seem to think," he smirked up at me. "A darling little Earthling like you hasn't the heart to kill a helpless man."

"Shut up. And don't call me that!"

"Oh? Does it bother you?" Alastor's smile had a sharp look, but his face had been getting pale. His hairline was even slightly damp with sweat, making the red dark as blood. In short, he didn't look very healthy.

Dammit. He was right. As much as I'd love to, I couldn't do anything to him without hating myself afterwards. Reluctantly I lifted my blade away from his neck.

"My, how gracious of you."

"Don't push your luck."

"I'm afraid I must. Unless you don't mind how this would look to anyone who happened to come in right about now, hmm?" I jumped off of him as fast as if I'd suddenly discovered he was made of burning coals. "I'm deeply wounded, truly, by the vehemence of your response..."

"Oh shut it," I snapped, "and tell me what you're here for this time."

"Just in the neighborhood, decided to drop by," sitting up he brushed off his coat and ran a hand through his hair, making the haphazard locks even more tangled looking. "Wanted to know if you'd run into any old friends."

"Why should you care?" I asked in confusion. "The only person we both know is Nevi..."

Alastor gave a surprised snort, "Nevi? Is that what you call him?" He chuckled to himself while repeating 'Nevi' to himself. I also caught something about someone never being able to live down a nickname.

I got fed up with letting things follow the red headed fairy's pace. "Will you cut it out and get to the point?"

"That really is all," he said in a light voice. "If the only one you can think of me referring to is 'Nevi' than it seems there was nothing to worry about at all..."

"...Who else could you mean?" I asked suspiciously. "The way you say that, it's as if there's someone else I should immediately be connecting you too."

Alastore blinked a bit owlishly and seemed at a loss for a moment, "Er..."

"...There's another one, isn't there."

"Why, whatever do you mean? Oh, would you look at the time, I must be going now!" With a sharp snap of his fingers he vanished.

"Wait! Dammit, why won't you guys _stop doing that?_"

"Ma'am? Is something wrong?" The door opened and my young escort looked in at me with concern.

"No, nothing's wrong," I sighed. _Nothing except fairies who won't give me a straight answer, hints that there's someone else I should be worried about, and the fact that now I have to fight my adoptive uncle. Just a wonderful day like any other._

x x x_  
_

**:D**

It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

Come now, didn't anyone guess that Ludwig is the ace up my sleeve for the coliseum? I know you're all excited about the possibility that Letha could fight Yuri or Flynn, but you all know by now that I aim for the unexpected.

Though this wasn't the way I most wanted Letha to find out she'd be fighting her 'uncle'...but writing takes on a life of its own!

Umm, oh yeah. Homni (not sure I'm spelling it right) is the basic stance in aikido. Hmm, so basic, yet I feel like it isn't easy to describe. Mostly, you have one foot forward and the other back, a natural feeling distance with a natural bend to your knees, so you're ready and in control of your movements and area. Hands up, the one corresponding to your front foot forward, and the other back closer to your chest... Agh, I feel like even though it's simple I'm making it harder to understand! If you must, think of it as being similar to En Garde.


	36. Chapter 36: Instruction

__You guys want to know what happened after I posted chapter 35? I looked at the total word count for FTaBV (195,620 at the time) and wondered "Huh. I wonder how many pages that is." And then copied and pasted every chapter into a single Word Document. Minus the author's notes, we have **175,400** words and about **352** pages my darlings! And you've stuck with me through it all! How are you not sick of me yet? Apparently about 20,000 words were just me rambling!

…I wonder how many pages it'll be once I add the omakes. :)

Angelic:

Angelic, m'dear, I'm ALWAYS insanely happy and smiley when I'm writing! Also, in response to your comment on the last omake: Yes, I am evil and proud of it. And yes, I'm aware that the MAJOR DEVELOPMENT in that omake makes it too relevant to just be an omake and more appropriate for the main fic. Sadly, since the previous 35 chapters have all been strictly Letha's point of view, the sudden switch to third person following Yuri wouldn't fit. Maybe most readers wouldn't mind, but the discrepancy in styles would severely offend my sensibilities. In short, I chose what I believe to be the lesser evil.

FlameUser64:

A new face/name! Happy to see I'm brainwash-I MEAN entertaining new readers just as well as the old loyal addicts. About the incident in the ghost ship, there wasn't anyone buffing Letha up with spells, rather one of the rare cases where I'm implying/she's assuming that her bodhi blastia has something to do with it. Perhaps there's reasons that shouldn't work. Perhaps Letha doesn't know those reasons. Perhaps I don't know either and it's a case of writer's fail caused by never actually playing the game. OR it's me being evil and leaving it up to you guys to guess if I'm planning something. I could even just be messing with you all right now.

I'm a terrible, evil person. You all don't even know the half of it yet. :D

...Yet another rambling author's note...

Listening to: Far From Home by Vic Mignogna. This song is like the theme song of every SI character ever!

x x x

Chapter 36: Instruction

x x x

"And here we have the scrappy young guildswoman-"

"Stop with the random title changes already!"

"-Letha Vitae of Brave Vesperia!"

"I am so gonna kick his ass," I grumbled as the crowd cheered at my entrance. I waved back to them, trying to appear more confident than I felt.

"And the last minute entry that amazed everyone with an overwhelming victory," _...Yuri didn't mention anything about overwhelming,_ "Ludwig Vitae!"

My anxiety for the fight to come notwithstanding, I smiled happily when I saw Ludwig enter the arena. Here was the one person in this world I felt perfectly at ease with. The one who knew the most about me, knew I had many secrets, and was content to let them be. Even to the point that he helped me cover up my origins. "Uncle Samaritan," I greeted him playfully. "I never would have thought you'd join the tournament."

"Likewise," he returned with a faint smile. "Although you don't seem all that surprised to see me here."

"Yuri saw your fight."

"Ah, the young man from before," he nodded slowly. "Your new friends all seem to care for one another very much," his tone was approving. So it puzzled me when I realized the look in his eyes was one of sadness.

"It's a heartwarming reunion between uncle and niece! But will the bonds of family survive the trials of battle? Or will they be torn apart in bloody conflict?"

"Don't make me come up there!" I shouted up at the announcer. He was making this sound dangerously like the Jerry Springer show or something.

"Did you always have such a temper?" Ludwig asked with mock disapproval while drawing his jian. He left his own dao sheathed on his belt.

"Some people just get to me way too easily," I responded sheepishly. Hesitating for a moment, I settled on taking both Gemini out. Ludwig had skill, and his skill made him both strong and fast. Since I couldn't hope to match his skill or his strength I'd have to bet on being faster. Aikido would probably be fastest, but with just that I wouldn't have a hope of cornering him into admitting defeat.

"Fight!"

For Ludwig it was a simple matter of pushing off from the ground hard with his back foot to launch himself forward and close the distance, sword extended towards me. With a small noise of surprise I stumbled a bit as I barely managed to dodge sideways. A careless flick of Ludwig's wrist sent the tip of his sword to chase my retreat, forcing me to pull back even further.

He did not follow up this exchange, instead returning to a ready stance with a shake of his head. "You hesitate still when the fight begins," my 'uncle' chided. "You never make the first move, and there is hesitation before you respond. Just now my attack was straightforward and predictable. If you had moved first, you could have headed me off and dealt a grievous first blow."

I felt my head and spirits droop at his criticism. He was right, I could even envision how I should have acted. I should have moved forward at the same time, if not first, caught and deflected the jian harmlessly to the side before it had all of its momentum and power, and used the opening to strike at nearly any part of his body. If he didn't react in turn fast enough, that could very well have ended the fight.

"An opportunity lost," Ludwig reiterated, "but not one to dwell upon. Except as an example to learn from." I nodded mutely, and raised my daggers for the next assault. It seemed this would be a fight, a test, and a lesson all for the price of one.

This time I was the one to rush in, pulling up short with a horizontal slash of Gemini Right, Gemini Left held at the ready as if to follow up with a stab when its twin was blocked. The jian flashed from side to side to block the first and intercept the second, only to waver in the air as if confused when neither was there. I had pulled my arm in so that the strike fell short of the sword, a maneuver accompanied by some sliding footwork that spun me around to Ludwig's side and then nearly behind him.

Gemini Right dove in again to make a shallow cut, one meant to mark where a much more serious injury would be on his collarbone or even his neck if I'd been so inclined. But it was stopped with the ring of metal on metal, Ludwig's sword somehow appearing at just the right angle to guard his exposed shoulder. "Good! Much better than before, though somewhat lacking in efficiency!"

Before I could try again Ludwig stole the lead with a flurry of attacks. His jian swept through the air and stabbed from all angles, its dance resembling the swift and deadly strikes of a stooping hawk. It was all I could do to dodge and deflect, sometimes forced to outright block his attacks (something very contrary to my style and mindset). Several times his sword slipped through my defenses and the flat of the blade would smack me in silent chastisement. At least I managed to never let those painful slaps hit any vital areas.

It ended when a deft twist and slash cut a bleeding line across my wrist and sent Gemini Left flying from my grip, clattering somewhere too far beyond my reach to be of anymore use. "Do you yield?" Ludwig questioned as I pulled my wounded hand in close to cradle against my chest, traces of blood smearing on the vest. "If such a small degree of pain is too much for you, you'd be better off finding a place to settle down in peace now."

"Me? Settle down?" I tossed Gemini Right to my left hand and drew Oberon with my right. "You're talking crazy now."

"Good girl." This time the smile on his face reached and warmed Ludwig's eyes. "When you fear neither pain nor death, all limits are removed from your path."

It struck me as an odd thing to say, though I could (sort of) understand what he was getting at. It comes up a lot in stories with a lot of fighting and action; if you're not afraid of the possibility that you could be killed, you would not hesitate. That acceptance actually raises the chances of surviving a dangerous situation, as the difference of a few seconds might be the difference between life and death. _But...why bring this up now? Why not back when he was first teaching me?_ It was as if he believed I was about to get involved in something so dangerous that any mistake could kill me.

There was no more time to consider his words, however, as he attacked again viciously. _Viciously_, no more stinging slaps whenever his jian sneaked in through my defenses, instead he began leaving shallow cuts behind. Very small ones, each forgettable on its own, but once combined resulted in a fair bit of blood loss. I needed to think of something to turn the tables fast.

I attempted a few artes, they were all moves I'd picked up after my lessons from Ludwig, so he wouldn't know about them. Star Stroke and Afterimage both knocked him back, but after the first time using each he wouldn't allow me to retreat an adequate distance to pull off the ranged attack and would catch my dao on his sword before I could complete the close quarters arte. Pierce simply couldn't make it through his guard without me losing an arm in the process. Ludwig never used any artes of his own either. It was all pure swordsmanship, and if I was going to win it would have to be through strategy.

With Oberon I was more willing to actually block instead of deflecting an attack. Though I still preferred not to take the heaviest blows directly. It was a reaction Ludwig knew to expect from me, and perhaps I could take advantage of him knowing my style so well. When the jian next descended on me from a higher angle, I used my dao to divert the sword to the side and encouraged it to continue in its swing until its point nearly brushed the ground. Ludwig allowed this, as he always had before, knowing that as long as he retracted the blade or redirected its momentum fast enough I wouldn't be able to use the opening it created.

I stomped down on the jian with my right foot, careful to do so in a way so that I stood on the flat of the blade and didn't drive my heel into its edge. It stopped the sword and its dance just like that. In his surprise Ludwig wasn't able to keep his grip on the hilt when the jolt of my foot snapping the blade downwards tugged it abruptly out of his hand.

I had disarmed Ludwig.

Despite the accomplished glow I felt from this achievement, I couldn't afford to take a moment to celebrate. I swung both Gemini Right Turned Left and Oberon up to slash diagonally up across his chest. A deep cut was not my intention, again I tried for something shallow to mark what would count as a more serious wound.

Since I'd thought the fight already over, what happened next flashed by too fast for me to register what exactly _had_ happened. Sunlight blazed off of metal for less than a second, my remaining Gemini flew away who knew where, and I found myself lying on the ground with Oberon pointing at my throat and Ludwig's unnamed dao resting just above my heart.

"The moment of perceived victory is when one is most vulnerable," was all Ludwig said.

"...You went easy on me. Except at the end."

"Even at the end. If I had not, you would be dead." Ludwig's voice was cold and emotionless. I didn't like it, it felt like someone else entirely had beaten me and not my 'uncle' and teacher. It left a knot of resentment in my throat, though I tried to swallow it and forget about the bitter taste as I rolled over and pushed myself back up. _Damn, I'm still gonna feel this fight tomorrow_.

The announcer had been chattering away to the crowd (I'd tuned him out like an annoying radio station DJ) which in turn was making a chaotic racket at the sudden turnabout that ended the fight. I kept my head down, not wanting to look at any of them, and tried not to listen too closely to any of it. Having so many people witness my failure, I did not like it. Irrational stage fright made rational by getting my butt kicked in front of an audience. I welcomed the distraction of Ludwig reversing his grip on Oberon and presenting the dao to me hilt first.

Accepting the return of my weapon, I gave Ludwig a respectful bow. Habit from my lessons back on Earth which carried over to the lessons from my 'uncle'. Bow and thank your sensei. He nodded at the familiar display of gratitude before reaching out to ruffle my hair a bit. "Come, do not be so down. You have made good progress on your own."

"It doesn't feel like much, but thank you..." It was then that a coliseum henchman came up to ask Ludwig if he wanted to rest before the next fight. I took the opportunity to track down both of my daggers. Since I'd lost, they're shouldn't be any objection to me watching the last fights, right? Maybe I could even go join the others up in the stands...

"Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we'll be jumping directly into the semifinals! Competitor Ludwig Vitae has waved the customary resting period, so in just a few minutes the excitement can begin!" Just before I left the arena, I looked back over my shoulder at my 'uncle'. He was standing passively; hands loose at his sides, head bowed slightly, eyes closed, and I could barely detect the rise and fall of his shoulders that indicated very deep breaths.

Yuri, of course, was waiting just inside the corridor. My money would bet he hadn't been that far away, what with his tendency to sneak past guards and spy on tournament matches.

"Hey," I greeted a bit lamely, "looks like I can't beat him after all."

All that got me was a noncommittal, "Hmm." Yuri was looking right past me, staring hard at Ludwig. Nonplussed, I watched him for a moment and then waved a hand in front of his face. He blinked and his eyes refocused on me standing in front of him. "Sorry. Wasn't listening."

The admission surprised me, "...Well I know you of all people can't be scared of a fight, so what's up with you?"

"Hmm, just have a few...questions I'd like to ask your uncle..."

"Questions?"

"Yeah, like how someone even more proper than Flynn could have raised such a wild black widow." That wisecrack earned him a jab in the shoulder.

"Ha ha, hurry up and get your butt kicked by my uncle." Yuri flipped his fingers in an almost salute (more like a mockery of one) followed by a wave as he strolled out to confront Ludwig. I jogged back to our waiting room, hoping to retrieve my bag and find my way to where the others were watching before the fight ended.

Surprisingly, there was somebody standing outside the room when I got there. Nobody I recognized...but he looked so bland that he probably wouldn't have stood out in my mind if I'd met him before. "Uhh, can I help you?"

"Ah, Lady Vitae," _...I've been called some really weird things today..._ "I have something for you."

"Wait, what?" I looked warily at the package wrapped in brown paper and twine he was holding out to me. My mind started playing semi-humorous images of a newly formed fan club vying for my attention. Which were more like horror/comedy images, as what sane fan club would be formed after seeing me fight in a coliseum match?

"Before the last fight, your uncle arranged for this to be delivered to you in the event of his victory," he informed me plainly. "Had you emerged the winner, he was to come and reclaim it himself."

"O-kaaay," I finally accepted the package, which he looked quite relieved to be rid off. With a polite bow and rehearsed, 'have a good day,' he left as fast as could be considered professional. Figuring he was just in a hurry to get back to work or whatever, I brought the package into the waiting room so I could sit down while opening it.

With a Gemini I cut away the twine, then had an OCD moment where I tried to remove the paper whole instead of just ripping it off. At least there wasn't half a roll of scotch tape getting in the way. Once I'd finally gotten it all off the paper dropped from my hands to crumple forgotten on the floor.

In my lap was a book. A manual, to be more precise. There was no title, but when I flipped it open the pages were filled with black and white diagrams demonstrating techniques with the dao. "Oh..."

…

The people in this world were too good to me.

Later I'd have to study it more thoroughly, but I hadn't forgotten that Ludwig and Yuri were probably trying to thrash each other that very moment. I wanted to see every second I possibly could of that. Slipping the dao manual into my bag, I rushed off to find the entrance to the audience seats.

x x x

They had started. My progress through the rows of seats to rejoin my friends made me the target of a whole slew of curses and jabbing elbows from people who did not appreciate me blocking the view. Jeezus, was this what it was like to come late to a football game? Good thing I never cared enough for sports to willingly put up with this.

But I could live with it this time. The curses and pointed elbows just rolled off my back as I squirmed through the small gaps until I popped up suddenly between Karol and Estelle.

"Woah!" Heheh, my sudden appearance surprised the little Ace.

"Oh, Letha! I'm glad you could join us up here!" I could barely hear Estelle over the noise. God, I hate being in the middle of screaming crowds.

"Yep, well, they don't really set up front row seats down there," I could finally devote my attention to the two men fighting it out. Yuri was in the middle of a series of artes and complicated sword maneuvers. From my experience with the man, I could tell Ludwig was having some trouble keeping up with them all, but covered for it well if you didn't know the facial tics to look for. "What'd I miss?"

"Not much," Judith supplied from the other side of our gathering. Her voice carried without her raising it over the screaming fans. How do some people manage that? "They've finished testing one another, I think, and-"

Her voice was finally covered by the audience's collective groans of sympathetic pain when Yuri's fist planted itself in Ludwig's solar plexus. I think it was the solar plexus. Curse the peanut gallery seats! Not close enough!

"That had ta hurt," Raven winced.

"Nah," I shook my head, "If Ludwig had just a second to see that coming, I bet it didn't land as solidly as it looked."

"Solid enough," Rita remarked, and indeed it seemed so. Ludwig and Yuri had put some distance between themselves, neither looking like they were in a hurry to reengage.

"Huh, I'm not sure who I should root for," I grinned a bit, "Though since we're on a job, I suppose I should be hoping Yuri wins." They still hadn't got back to fighting yet. Actually, it looked like they were talking...

"Of course Yuri will win!" Karol asserted with vehemence. "Yuri would never lose!" Repede barked, as if backing him.

"Not that we don't think your uncle is strong," Estelle was quick to put in. "It's just..."

"Don't worry, I get it," I assured her. I hadn't really been paying attention to what they'd been saying anyway. Something about Ludwig's stance and what little I could see of his expression was worrying me.

Whatever they were talking about, it seemed serious. Yuri was having one of his rare moments where he was giving visible cues of how angry he was. Amazing, the normally polite and likeable Ludwig had pissed Yuri Lowell off in only two brief meetings. I couldn't begin to imagine how that had happened.

Ludwig suddenly exploded into motion again, apparently catching Yuri by surprise. The two were locked in a standoff when Yuri just barely managed to block the jian from practically beheading him.

"Yow! They do know they're not supposed ta be playin' for keeps, right?"

Concerned about the escalating hostility, I stared hard at the fight and resisted even blinking. What was going on? When Ludwig actually _disarmed_ Yuri I involuntarily gave a frightened gasp, momentarily convinced someone was about to die, but it seemed he didn't execute the move correctly as his own jian was lost in the process. And then, like in my own fight, the tables were abruptly turned as Yuri rushed Ludwig with an unarmed charge and a blue wolf's head of aer.

Ludwig was thrown back by the force of the attack, and that appeared to be the end of it. My fingers dug into my palms as I chewed my lip worriedly. _Ludwig..._

"And Ludwig Vitae is down! Is this the end of the seasoned warrior's run?"

"I swear," I growled, "if I ever meet that guy on the street, I'm gonna smack him one." I didn't even know _why_ the guy bugged me so badly anymore. He just did. On principle.

Yuri was saying something. Dammit, I really wanted to know what they kept talking about down there. At least Ludwig finally got up, and didn't seem too badly hurt. Though there was no telling how much he might be covering up from pride and sheer stubbornness. I did, however, believe that if he really wanted to he could keep going.

But Ludwig was leaving the arena. "Well what do you know! It seems Ludwig has admitted defeat at the hands of the next generation!" _Why? What was this all about? Some sort of testing the new batch of heroes crap? Men are so confusing..._

Yuri was still obviously angry. Whatever he said was enough to make Ludwig stop for a moment, but not turn around. _No_, I frowned as I considered what I knew about my 'uncle's' personality,_ he won't turn around because he's...ashamed. Or something._ Ludwig was the type to look you right in the eye, it took something he felt really bad about to break that. Like Sophia's death.

Whatever it was all about, Ludwig shook his head and left a very irate Yuri glaring at his back. The younger swordsman only left off his evil eye when his escorts came for him. Must have been a desperate attempt to keep Yuri from sneaking off again. Might as well have left him alone, now that everyone else was eliminated Yuri should be content to wait for them to announce his match with the champion.

Oh goody. Yuri versus Flynn time. Or it would be, soon enough.

"Heeey, Letha!" I realized with a start that Raven was trying to get my attention. "Geez, how'd ya start day dreamin' in a place like this? Can hardly hear myself think with all the noise."

"I'm sorry, I was distracted..." I murmured. They probably didn't even hear me over the crowd.

"We asked if you wanted to go see your uncle," Estelle apparently repeated.

"Oh," I blinked while considering the question. Well, as fond as I was of Ludwig, there wasn't an urgent need to go talk with him again. Not after that last lesson/beating. Though I would like to find out what was up between him and Yuri... "No... I doubt I'd be able to catch him anyway," I decided.

"Catch?" Karol said in confusion.

"He had someone deliver this to me after our fight," I pulled out the dao manual to show them. "If he hadn't already decided to leave once he was done, he could have just given it to me himself."

"That's considerate of him," the princess practically snatched the manual out of my hand despite the cordiality of her tone. As a fellow book lover I could empathize, but wow... "But it's a shame that you didn't get a chance to say goodbye." Nobly she held off opening the book to inspect its contents long enough to search my expression for signs that I might be hurt by my uncle's abrupt departure.

I just shrugged, "He left me a present that speaks louder than words," I nodded at the book in her hands, giving unspoken permission. Immediately she opened and started leafing through it, like I had not that long before.

"Letha, this..."

"Ludwig never formerly trained me to use a dao before," I explained, "Just the daggers. I've been fighting based on what I've seen him do, and what I know about swords in general. As you've probably realized," my shoulders rose and fell in a careless gesture, "my skills have got nothing on what Ludwig can do with either of his swords."

"Don't put yerself down like that."

"You did quite well considering all that."

Raven and Judith's words made me smile, though I only half believed them. Yeah, they wouldn't say it if they didn't believe it, but the words carried a slight ring of customary platitudes given to sooth the loser. I wouldn't say as much out loud though.

My manual was passed around, though only Judith and Estelle gave it any more than a cursory look, and then returned to my bag. I thought to double check and see if the others had their things with them, since we wouldn't be here much longer. And to my relief everyone had at least a small bag, pouch, or whatever that we'd each taken to keeping on our persons at all times. Sure, I was the only one who _knew_ we'd beat town quickly, but the others had learned that the possibility always existed. Though Karol's and mine looked the most packed for such eventualities.

Yes, we live and learn.

"It just keeps getting better!" the announcer's voice split through the air with what I would assume must be a blastia enabled speaker system. "Now it's time for the main event!" Yuri slowly walked into the coliseum arena, turning and looking around at the audience. His eyes first sought out our group, the ease of which suggested he'd marked their position during a previous fight.

The announcer was still going on. "Allow me to introduce... The current and undefeated champion of the coliseum!" From the opposing entrance, the one Yuri had just turned his back on, a figure emerged. Sunlight reflected off of well polished armor and blue uniform, sword, and blond hair.

"What...?" Estelle gasped.

Karol reeled back as if punched, perhaps he would have fallen over if I didn't shift to the side so that he was supported by my own body. Repede was growling and whining.

"It's the heartthrob with the steely gaze! Flynn Scifo!"

"Oh, I am _definitely _calling him that next time we talk to him!" I grinned. Suddenly, I felt a lot less animosity towards that announcer...

Flynn, meanwhile, pulled up short with an expression of pure surprise we could see clearly up in the nose bleed section. For his part Yuri's expression darkened for a moment upon hearing the champion's name. But the neutral-casual look returned soon enough as he turned around and bounced his katana off his shoulder. The very picture of being comfortably prepared and confident.

Brief conversation between them, as they realize someone has not been entirely honest (*coughREGAEYcough*), but between the old friends it took very few words. Both were readying weapons (and shield in Flynn's case) with an eagerness that hid any trepidation from the clueless audience. "Men of the coliseum! Let the flames of your valor burn bright! It's time for the final showdown!"

The ensuing battle was different from Yuri's fight with Ludwig. While that had appeared to be in the guild veteran's favor most of the time, even when Yuri was pressing the attacker's advantage, this one felt as if it could go either way. Flynn always knew just when to guard Yuri's attacks, and when they were feints that could be ignored. Yuri always anticipated where Flynn's sword would come from next, and knew when it was safe to directly block or better to nimbly dodge.

Thinking about it, even though the two had that whole light-and-dark, yin-and-yang thing going on their fighting styles made clear differences in their basic...stats. Flynn had higher raw strength. He must since he was always burdened with the weight of armor. That constant source of endurance training made him the stronger with formidable toughness.

But this meant that Yuri, in his light clothes and nonexistant armor, had greater speed and agility. This was accentuated by his occasionally acrobatic feats, sword flying from hand to hand as necessary while fists and feet were used nearly as often as steel. Trying to keep up with Yuri would wear Flynn out faster.

Still, anyone who knew anything about the game would know that Yuri freely admits he'd never beaten Flynn. At anything. So maybe despite my observations, a drawn out fight would work against him... Not that we'd get to enjoy a long, drawn out fight between them. They were allowing it to remain at a stale mate for the time being so that they could talk over their swords, but even before they decided how to wrap it up without trouble...

_Any second now..._

"Yuriiiiiiiiii...Lowell!" Zagi's insane screech actually silenced every spectator for a moment. The tri-color hair man practically threw himself down the the rows of seats, people scrambling to get out of his way since he would definitely just run over anyone in his way. But the thing I didn't anticipate was that he came from _directly behind_ where we were sitting.

We were a bit too shocked to stop him, and probably couldn't even if we'd tried. Karol yelped and fell backwards over Repede as the assassin shoved between us. His left arm made contact with mine, and I staggered at the sudden ill feeling that overcame me.

"Ugh!" I doubled over at the sudden nausea and suffocating pain in my chest. _What the hell?_

Not noticing or caring (why would he?), Zagi flung himself from the stands to land in the midst of the competing friends. "What do we have here! Has someone arrived to steal the spotlight from the stars of the show?" An edge of bewildered panic seeped into the announcer's voice.

In my state, I couldn't pay any more attention to events than that. Hunched over, I groaned and buried my face in my knees and arms. Why did I feel so sick after Zagi passed us by?

I did register the cries of shock, surprise, fear, and pain coming from all over. All seemingly in response to something Zagi had said, or done. Wasn't paying enough attention.

"Woah! What is that?" Karol's voice was right next to my ear. Meaning it was considerably louder than I would appreciate at the moment. A small, gentle hand touched my back. Probably Estelle, checking on me.

"It's a blastia!" Rita identified whatever everyone was so worked up over. "I can't believe he'd try to use it like that...!" _Right! Duh moment, Yuri hurt his arm the last time they fought! And Zagi gets a weird blastia arm in the time between that fight and his showing up here!_

"I've got a bad feelin' about this."

"That blastia...!" Judith exclaimed with more shock than normally anything could elicit from her. _...Bigger duh! The blastia arm was another of those screwed up ones her father invented._

It seemed that while I'd never reacted to regular blastia in any way, something about the Hermes...Hoplon blastia (wait, was there a difference? I couldn't remember...) gave me aer sickness. Yay for new discoveries...

"Judith!" The gentle hand left my back as Estelle cried out. And I could sense the sudden empty space around me as the entire group pushed its way down the stands in pursuit of each other. Groaning, I forced myself to get a grip and go after them.

"...Oh screw this, I'm outta here!" the announcer announced his desertion as a handful of monsters came bursting out of various entries. Audience members screamed in fresh wave of fear. _Wait, they aren't supposed to get out until after we fight Zagi, aren't they? _Apparently, Zagi's initial demonstration of his new toy sped up the schedule just a tiny bit.

Monsters were between us and Yuri, so we had to trust he could handle the crazed assassin on his own for the time being. We'd first try to do something about the hoard of monsters already trying to force their way out of the lower levels of the coliseum where they'd been confined. The first one I found myself squaring off against reminded me of an unholy cross between a praying mantis and a Sinspawn boss I could vaguely remember from Final Fantasy X. Yaaay...

It swiped at me with a bladed arm that wasn't so much serrated as it was toothed. Large, conical points that reminded me of pictures I'd seen of the inside of an orca's mouth. I avoided the hit by moving in very close to the monster. Such an action was inherently accompanied by a horrified reaction of _'giant disgusting bug, eww!'_ but fortunately that just helped matters as I viciously Pierced it in the vitals with both Gemini before it could do anything. Bug juice sprayed out on my hands.

"Ewww," jerked the daggers out of the exoskeleton and dashed off to find my next target. Maybe Bugspawn wasn't dead yet, but it would be soon and not at all dangerous in the meantime. The arena had already become _very_ full, monsters swarming everywhere and demanding all of our attention. Yuri and Zagi were focused on their own fight, but occasionally a katana or knife (though the way he used them reminded me of tonfas) would direct itself against a monster that was unfortunate enough to interrupt.

Poor monsters. Never get between a crazed fanboy and the object of his obsession.

"Argh!" In my distraction a nasty lizard-dog hybrid had bitten my leg! It growled triumphantly as its jaws shifted to bite through the bone of my shin. Its teeth came together so hard I could hear them click.

I heard it, but didn't feel anything. I stumbled backwards and my leg went right through the jaw that had a split second before been firmly clamped on it. Other than some holes and bleeding from the initial bite, my leg was unharmed. Permeability again. Shut up, go back to killing things, and be grateful for it.

I'd be much more grateful if Nevi was there to answer some questions. I do NOT like NOT understanding my own body!

Barely conscious of my own angry and frustrated thoughts, I cracked the hilt of Gemini Right against the skull of the monster that had realized it was no longer chewing on my shin. The blow was enough to rock its head to the side and upwards, giving me a clear shot at its throat. I grimly severed it with Gemini Left.

Maybe I still had issues to work out when fighting people, but monsters I could at least be ruthless with. Their world was a simpler one, one of pure survival, no mercy, and no unending vendettas. Circle of Life in all its bloody glory.

...Time to stop thinking depressing, cynical thoughts.

It was basically a giant free for all. At some point early on, Flynn found a way up into the announcer's box (killing some monsters on the way up) and gave commands for his knights to suppress the monsters and evacuate the spectators, who were milling around in such a panic that they weren't doing a very good job at getting out on their own.

I think we all kinda gave up on joining up with Yuri to beat down Zagi. Or at least I gave up. Instead I settled on fighting back to back with Raven, giving the archer cover so he could shoot off arrows and artes without fear. There were just too many monsters, and often enough we'd lose sight of the others. I could still hear Zagi's psycho laugh though. That was pretty creepy. Like expecting the Joker to come springing out at you.

There was a blast from the area I'd last seen them. The ground shuddered from the shock, knocking me off my feet, and I coughed and spat as dirt was thrown up in a dust cloud. Movement in my peripheral had me scrambling up and around, but it turned out to be Zagi running away from the battle. His expression was a mix of pain and utter fury as he clutched his blastia arm in close. So, Yuri was two for zero. Or, no, three for zero. Almost forgot about the first meeting in the castle.

Judith was in pursuit of Zagi, but was cut off by a group of monsters that apparently thought numbers would give them the advantage. They were wrong, but Judith for once looked supremely frustrated as the delay was enough for the assassin to escape.

Then a flare of blinding light, a surge of heat, and another blast came from another area of the arena. Looking over in startlement, I saw a very bewildered Rita gaping at a scorched circle of ground with a smoldering heap of charbroiled monster in the center. Her expression screamed 'Did I do that?'

Estelle had been right beside her, presumably acting as the mage's covering meat shield, and was equally astonished. She reached into her own bag (I mentioned we all carry some sort of bag, right? Yeah...) and withdrew the red chest from the Atherum. While I couldn't hear anything from that far off, circumstances and game knowledge told me that Estelle had put two and two together. The only thing that was different from any other fight, was the box. So it was the best guess fro what could have thrown off Rita's casting.

_...Still a crazy leap of logic though._

And then Regaey mugged Estelle.

Well, no. But he freaking appeared like magic from the mass of monsters and knights and dust still getting kicked up and just swiped the chest. And just as randomly, he practically vanished again into said list of chaos. Repede was hot on his heels fortunately. Judith gave chase as well, actually using her spear to pole vault onto a Bugspawn's back and then leap off and away from the fighting.

..._Why can't I be that epic?_

"Come on!" I grabbed Raven by the wrist and tried pulling him along in the direction Judith had gone.

"Why do ya guys always hafta run everywhere?" he whined, but kept pace with me as we slipped through the gaps between monsters. When we'd won free from the mess, I saw the others had all been thinking the same way. Yuri came out of a particularly thick knot of monsters with Karol close behind, while Estelle and Rita were lagging a bit to make sure we were all coming.

"Judith and your puppy dog already took off," Rita informed Yuri shortly.

He gave a curt nod, "Yeah, I heard," and continued his run out the door.

"A hero's work is never done..." The archer sighed and gave me a significant look, as if expecting me to make my own wisecrack. I just ignored Raven and ran after the others. "Wait up! Hey!"

"You'd think an old man like you would know to save his breath for the hero's work instead of the complaining," I called back to him.

"You'd also think an old man an' hero'd get some more respect!"

We ran full tilt through the corridors, not so much knowing which way Regaey took as trying to head him off before he could get out of the building. But that was an exercise in futility as it would take a full scale, guild enforced lock down to do that. So closer to say trying to catch a glimpse of him before he got totally lost in the city (and by extension, the wilderness outside the city).

It was gonna happen. As we burst out off the main entrance, we saw Judith already coming back. She shook her head when she saw us. "I lost him."

"...He's pretty good at running away."

_Seriously. If I didn't know he was Yeager in extremely convincing disguise, I'd be wondering just how the hell an old guy could move like that_.

"Repede is still after him," she reminded us, not yet willing to give up the chase. This was nothing more than a temporary set back.

"Hopefully he won't lose the trail." Though Yuri should know best out of all of us how likely, or unlikely, that was. Not wanting to push our luck, we immediately followed Judith in the direction she believed Regaey to be traveling in, hoping to meet up with the hound and get back on the right track.

"But what's the deal, anyway? Why would Regaey...?" Karol looked around as if one of us knew the answer. Oh wait.

I didn't meet the boy's wide eyes as Raven followed up on the question with, "Think he set us up somehow?"

"Looks that way," Yuri agreed. "He used us to keep Flynn from carrying out his orders." The hard set to Yuri's jaw said just how little he liked being duped and used as a tool.

"Orders...?" Estelle looked troubled at the word.

"Relax, it doesn't look like he's here to recapture any princesses. He wouldn't go through the trouble of entering the tournament for that."

"Well, then what could it be?"

"Good question. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was hurting Regaey's plans." I began to mentally drift off as the others continued to debate Regaey's motives.

So...next up, was those caverns. On the way back, they'd be blockaded by the knights. Flynn's orders right now, maybe they had something to do with the early stages of that? _I think that's what the game leads you to believe. I dunno... Though it won't really matter for awhile. We have some Giant Talking Chicken hunting to do._

When we reached the city's exit, it didn't take long to find Repede. He was pacing impatient little circles and looking back as if wishing we'd hurry up. When he saw us he trotted back to show us the scrap of material caught in his teeth.

"Is this...?" Judith delicately removed the fabric from Repede's mouth. It was a scrap of khaki cloth.

Yuri smirked triumphantly. "Repede'll be able to follow his scent with this." The dog barked, tail wagging as if he was very pleased with himself.

"We've gotta get that case back!" Rita's eyes flashed dangerously. The case had piqued her interest. Nothing on heaven or Earth could stop her.

"Yeah, there's that too." I eyed Yuri askance. What was with that 'Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that detail' tone? It sounded like he was more interested in instructing Regaey in how impolite it was to use people. Instruction that would use a sharp sword as a teacher's aide.

"Guilds don't take kindly ta backstabbin' cheats." Well, sounded like Raven was in a similar frame of mind.

Even Karol seemed extremely solemn, "That's right." Well, at least he didn't have quite the bloodthirsty vibe the other two had. Though that was mostly from Yuri.

Well, Judith diffused the atmosphere with the reasoning that we'd have a good chance of catching him since the mountains needed preparation to cross. Before long we were hot on his tail with Repede's nose tracking him. I was the only one who had any idea that it wouldn't be so simple.

x x x

*Sylph is banging head on the wall* Why must awesome fights be so hard? How does R.A. Salvatore do it?

Uggh. Fight scene overload. If the fight between Yuri and Ludwig seemed a bit disappointing, that's in part because I'd already written it once, and felt too drained to describe it again. So, yeah, somewhat better version in the omake that should be going up soon after this. And it'll again convince people that I am evil.

But YES! Finally out of Nordopolica!

...With this chapter, count goes up to pages: **365** words: **182,658.** Still without the omakes.


	37. Chapter 37: Practice, Practice, Practice

__Blah. I've kept you all waiting (Bad me!). This chapter took longer than it should have because I caught a cold, and it suddenly invaded my brain and broke it. All ideas I got during those days were either just weird or..._really_ weird.

Not one of my favorite chapters by a long shot. Eventually decided to just throw it up online and move on...

More fanart by KatherosLibra in my DA favorites. This time it's Letha with Yuri and Repede.

Angelic:

I DENY ANY AND ALL PAIRING SPARKS! Oh wait, no I don't. LUDWIGXSOPHIA FOREVAH! XD Course you'll never believe me anyway. I could have Letha randomly elope with _Ioder_ and you'd probably still believe Yuri and Letha were totally fanfic soulmates. And thanks for also supporting my battle scenes, I'll stop whining about them now~ "Heartthrob with a steely gaze"...actual game dialogue that was. Probably gonna be one of my favorite lines ever from now on. Until the next awesome line comes along. ;p

FlameUser64:

*Shrugs* If it makes more sense to you that way, you can pretend it was coil (skills are another technical detail I'm pretty vague on). I honestly can't find a satisfactory explanation of what the bodhi blastia do, and lack actual ownership of the game to experiment with and develop a good theory of my own. I just assume they allow the user to channel aer into artes and have an added bonus of some stat boosts.

And hmm, now doesn't that sound just like something I would do? You'll just have to wait and see if that's what I _am_ going for here. ;D

x x x

Chapter 37: Practice, Practice, Practice

x x x

I hate endurance running. Heck, I hate anything more than a brief sprint. I simply don't have the right sort of stamina or pain tolerance that long distance running requires. And I kept reminding myself of that as I wheezed along with everyone else after Repede, hot on 'Regaey's' trail.

_Goddamn...all marathons...to the lowest pits of...fricken' HELL...and HADES...and Tartarus and...and all the other...nasty underworld type places...I'm too tired to think of right now!_

_I should get my own canine buddy. A nice dog with three heads, and have all three heads take turns gnawing on Yeager a bit. Yeaaah..._

While I fantasized on various ways to get back at Yeager for his growing list of grievances, we kept on running in manner reminiscent to Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli trying to chase down an army of orcs across the plains of Rohan... Yeah, no. Sorry Tolkien and Peter Jackson, but people really can't do that for three days. Or if there are people who could do that, they certainly weren't us. More like, we would run for a period of time, slow down to a less taxing (though still ground consuming) walk, run some more, walk some more...repeat until someone finally just throws themselves to the ground and demands a short break.

It was very hard not to be the one who did that the most.

The Weasand of Cados is not just a skip and a jump away from Nordopolica. It was well over a day away, and I doubted we'd run down Yeager/Regaey before that. Not just because of game events either. Yeager being Yeager, I wouldn't be surprised if he allowed (...would allow...damn chronology and tenses) Brave Vesperia to catch him on purpose.

Why, though, I couldn't hazard a guess. It could just be the stitch in my side talking, trying to rub it in my face that we probably didn't have to hurry _quite_ so much. Shut up, side. Leave my face alone.

"Hey Letha," began Karol, during one of sanity preserving walking periods, "Can you tell us another story?"

"Give me a moment..." Another story...I hadn't yet thought of a good long one that wouldn't raise too many hard to explain questions. On instinct I automatically ruled out all other video games. Just seemed like the irony would find a way to bite me in the ass. Not up to _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy after _The Hobbit_... If I could I wanted to take a different direction, though most of what I knew was fantasy. _Oooh, wait!_

"I could tell you about the _Serenity_ and her crew."

"Crew? So this '_Serenity_' is a ship?" Estelle correctly inferred.

"Another pirate story?" It took a moment of blinking at Yuri in confusion before I realized he was referring to when I'd told him about Sinbad back in Dahngrest. Forgot about that.

"Oh, no... Well, actually, yes. Sort of." I grinned at the looks they were all giving me, probably wondering how it was possible to 'sort of' be a pirate. "The _Serenity_ was a space ship that sailed among the stars."

As I'd expected, Karol's eyes flew wide open as he went, "Wooow, really?" in awe.

"I've never heard of anything like that," Estelle said in wonder, "Was there really a ship like that?"

"No, it's not historical fact," I admitted. "Another fictional story, and not a particularly well known one. It's takes place in a hypothetical future. Way way _way_ in the future."

"Huh, sounds like a pretty interestin' future," observed Raven. Though I didn't believe that I had any more than half of his attention. Probably less, as he was walking behind Judith and was observing her with more appreciation than he gave my stories. I kicked a rock in my path so that it flew forward and hit him in the back of his shins.

"Anyway," I continued, ignoring the way Raven was hopping on one foot (_We know you're playing it up..._), "since it happens so far in the future, a lot of the world had changed in the intervening years. Kingdoms rising and falling, great conquerors come and go, new countries formed and old ones crushed... All the while, science makes new discoveries and crucial break throughs."

Rita perked up. But when she opened her mouth I cut her off with, "No, don't ask what kind of break throughs. It's the sort of stuff that goes way over my head, and very few of the details are actually necessary for the storytelling." Which was how I'd cover up pretty much anything that was taken for granted in Earth culture. Super advanced technology is indistinguishable from super advanced magic, I'd heard it said once. And vice versa. And the word 'science' is beautifully vague, they'd assume it meant blastia or whatever made most sense in their minds.

It served to snap Rita's mouth shut, and she glowered at me for a bit, but at least she wasn't making too much of a fuss. Even seemed like she'd be paying attention, hopefully with minimal interruptions. I'd have her trained as a proper listener, sooner or later.

"As I was saying, science made advances in leaps and bounds. All sorts of things were invented, from luxuries that made everyday life simpler, to weapons capable of destroying entire cities in seconds. Weapons that make the Heracles look like a child's toy." Faces all around paled at that.

"That's..." the princess failed to find words fitting her thoughts. But it was clear that the comparison troubled her.

"It's the way of many things in life," I told her. "Every tool can be used for good and bad, depending on the will of the user. Like how the same things that can be used for poison can be used as medicine to save lives instead of killing them." Yes, that last part was an intentional attempt to indirectly make her feel better about her power and Phaeroh's words about being the 'insipid poison'. I was pretty sure she didn't realize that's what I was doing, but I could see from the thoughtful look in her eyes that my words weren't going to be forgotten so easily. Good, then.

"Right. Getting to the point. With these advances people were able to study space and the stars, learning much about the workings of the universe. Eventually they learned enough to build ships that could leave this world and travel to the distant stars. Many of those stars were entirely new worlds."

"New worlds?" Karol bounced excitedly. "Did they have people on them too?"

"Ah, now, that was a question people had been asking for ages. Theoretically, there _must_ be more life out in the universe. But all the planets they found were like desert wastelands, and supported no life. They still believed it was possible, somewhere even further than their ships had gone, that their could be other sentient life forms." _Hee heee... Look at the sparkle in that kid's eyes. He's gonna be a fan of aliens and alien conspiracies now!_

A brown and bluish bird like monster (Pidgeoto...) swooped down from the sky where we hadn't noticed it. It was swiftly dealt with, Raven first shooting it in the wing and grounding it so that Yuri could finish it off with a few decisive strokes of his sword.

The whole afternoon had been like that, some random attacks from monsters like we'd seen in the coliseum plus some that could fly. The flying ones were annoying at first until we settled on the formula of ranged attack followed up by whoever was closest to the feathered menaces when they went down making sure it stayed down for good. And after Raven and Rita decimated an entire swarming flock early on, we really hadn't seen many of that type again.

"You were saying?" Yuri asked casually, idly wiping the monster blood off his sword before sheathing it. Judith was pouting, probably thinking if Raven had shot it just a little sooner it would have been her turn to finish it off.

"Um, yeah." _These people, hardly batting an eye..._ "Well, seeing as they'd discovered all these new planets that couldn't be lived on, scientists took up the challenge of discovering how to make inhospitable planets...hospitable. And it was good thing, because the wars on Ea-world were getting worse." _Oops, gonna have to be careful about that_. Happily, nobody seemed to pay the slip up any mine. "Advancements in weaponry made destruction more widespread and indiscriminate, until the very world was on the brink of destruction."

"How could they do that? If they saw that the world was being destroyed, shouldn't they do something to stop that?"

I had to look away, feeling a bit ashamed. After all, I was actually describing the state of my homeworld rather than giving a simple prologue and fixing the setting. "...People are very reluctant to change once they've settled into a way of life. And frightened, so easily frightened. By change, or the neighboring country that's doing so well, or by the possibility that a weaker country may grow violent in their envy... Give power to frightened people, and you're asking for them to misuse it."

"You can't know that for sure..." the princess objected, though she seemed to become less sure with each word.

I smiled gently at her. "You're right. It hasn't happened yet, after all. Maybe a big enough threat can snap people back to their senses." Though in my cynical opinion, that would have to be a damn huge threat, and it would be unlikely we'd pull our act together fast enough to save ourselves. According to game plot, the Adephagos was a common disaster on a magnitude that could make people change. But who could say, once enough time passed...

_Deep thoughts not helping. Get back to yakking. _"Well, this story works off the assumption that people were scared of each other enough to pretty much doom the planet. But they realized what they were doing soon enough to try and save their own lives. While a huge percentage of the world population was killed off, many escaped on ships out into space, where they did their best to make the worlds they'd found habitable. 'Terraforming' it was called, and while it wasn't perfect it at least changed the worlds enough that they could support life."

Geez, history lesson and hypothetical history lesson took longer than I'd realized, and it took even longer as I roughed out how the government worked, or lack there of in a larger number of the dirt poor planets. One huge federation with a Big Brother like spin, and planets that weren't in on it had their own individual systems. And were typically like planet wide wild west settings. Oh yeah, the _Firefly_ series was a Space Western! I'm still shocked that I actually liked it so much.

Before I had totally killed their interest with all that exposition, I finally got to the tiny little space craft named _Serenity_ that was crewed by a rag tag group of desperate people scraping a living with any work, honest or not so honest, they could get. Definitely I got their interest back when reenacting the opening scene where the pilot Wash was playing with his dinosaur toys.

"'-We have found this land, and we shall call it...This Land.' Said the stegosaurus, a plant eating monster.

"'I think we should call it your grave!' jeered the carnivorous T-Rex," I gleefully even did my best impression of Wash's T-Rex voice. (And I had explained dinosaurs as mythical monsters, leaving out the fact that there were skeletons to prove their existance...)

"'Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!'" The others snickered as I pantomimed the 'fight' between the two dinosaur toys, the way Wash's actor had performed it. Sure, I didn't have two plastic toys to sic on each other, but hand puppets get the idea across! Such an ingenious way to kick off a series... And despite the grim setting I'd laid out, there were countless humor moments that made the series as much a comedy as action or drama.

Then Yuri decided we had to run again. Curse his sudden but inevitable betrayal...

x x x

I was able to get to most of the character introductions during our sporadic running breaks. Describing Shepard Book as a priest of 'a religion not founded yet' felt pretty weird, but fortunately I didn't have to go into any more than vague details about Christianity.

Karol called the ship mechanic Kaylee a 'nicer, peppier version of Rita,' which struck me as surprisingly appropriate so that I had to laugh. Then both of us had to run to avoid the rain of vengeful fireballs.

It didn't help matters that I cried, "Ack! It's how the dinosaurs died off!" as we fled. Rita did not appreciate that comparison either.

Eventually, when it was almost too dark to set up camp, we had to admit that we weren't going to catch up with Regaey if most of us were about to keel over. As long as it didn't rain during the night, we could get some rest without fear of losing him.

Once we had set up our tents, the smell barrier thing was set, and Judith had dinner underway, I retreated to my own out of the way spot to look through my dao manual more thoroughly. There were basic forms, exercises to familiarize oneself with these forms (some of these pages were dog eared, the creases crisp and new looking. Thanks for the subtle nudge, Ludwig...), some more complicated moves...and, not to my surprise, artes that could be applied to these forms. It did interest me to note that there were brief sections on weapons that had been adapted from the dao. Like a long spear combined with a broad sword*, and Butterfly Swords (rather like shorter versions of daos meant to be used in pairs). Perhaps I could use the Butterfly Swords as a reference for my dagger work, and maybe Judith would be interested in looking over the spear section...

While I studied the images in the book, trying to picture the movements and visualize myself following the instructions, I didn't really notice that the others had taken notice of me. Until Yuri practically materialized right in front of me.

"Something up?" I asked in bewilderment, trying not to jump when I realized he was there.

"So Ludwig left this for you back at the coliseum?" Yuri asked casually, apparently confirming what the others must have told him.

"Yeah," I passed it to him, "It looks like it'll be really helpful." A slight line appeared in Yuri's forehead as it furrowed nearly imperceptibly as he paged through the book slowly. "Did you want to borrow it?"

"Eh, no, I learn better by doing instead of reading," he returned my manual.

"True... It'd help if I could actually try some of this stuff in a controlled environment, instead of on the fly during an actual fight." _Hmm, is he...?_ I tilted my head back and then nodded at the sword casually resting on his shoulder. "May I take that as an invitation to spar?"

"That was the idea," he grinned. "After all, we kind of missed our chance in the coliseum."

"Funny, you never seemed interested in a friendly match before." Even as I pointed this out I still got to my feet and checked that all my own weapons were accounted for. "I figured you'd had your fill back when I showed you how aikido works." I smirked a bit at the grimace the reminder brought to his face.

"Sparring? Sounds like fun," Judith materialized from behind Yuri. Jesus...they'd both be naturals at espionage.

"Weren't you making dinner?" Yuri asked.

The krytian femme fatale smiled sweetly. "Raven was nice enough to help out a bit." Judging by her smile, I'd say Raven let himself get duped into it the way only Judith could pull off. "And it's no fair if the two of you keep hogging all the fun. I barely got to let loose at all back in the coliseum," she finished with a slight pout.

Realizing she wouldn't give up until she got her way, Yuri caved in without a fight. "Fine, fine, you can join too."

"Wait a minute!" Rita rushed over.

"What, you want to join in too?" Yuri asked with some slight dismay. Dismay? That didn't seem like him...

"No," she answered, sounding as if that should have been obvious and we were idiots for thinking otherwise. "But I want to observe. That phenomenon where objects pass through Letha has only occurred during fights so far, and I want to see it when it happens again."

"Ah, so this is what it is to be a guinea pig..." I rhapsodized. "When one's every movement and choice is watched and recorded in the name of science." Eyebrows were being raised at me. "I'll stop now."

Yuri broached the question which my short speech had apparently raised. "What's a guinea pig?"

"Uhhm... Little animals...good for experimenting on..." Continued blank stares. "You know what? Never mind. Where are we gonna fight?"

We left the camp so we'd have plenty of room, and considering the terrain was pretty flat and devoid of trees we could go pretty far without losing sight of the others. Once we decided we'd gone far enough not to risk messing up the camp, but not too far in case of emergencies, we prepared to fight. Rita plopped down and sat crosslegged on the ground, staring intently at me. _Yeah, that's not weird or creepy at all..._

After some stretching to warm up I drew Oberon. Yuri and Judith were all ready, but patiently looking in my direction.

"You're planning on trying something from that manual, are you not?" the other woman inquired. At my nod, "Is there anything in particular you need us to do?"

"Hmm..." I studied the set of diagrams for the first arte I'd been hoping to master. "I would appreciate if you guys went easy on me, but don't hold back too much." Ehh, contradictory instructions, much? "I guess, both of you keep attacking so that I never quite get a chance to completely stop."

"No problem."

"We can do that."

"And try to get her to do that weird trick again!" Rita added. I had to protest when they both nodded in further agreement.

Yuri and Judith are both mad fast. The first few exchanges were more along the lines _slash, stab, ruuuun!_ Practically all dodging and no counter attacks from me. Soon, though, my mind managed to shift over into combat mode so that I stopped thinking and started doing. Yuri and Judith also had a better gauge of my level and lightened up a bit more so I'd have the leeway to try something unfamiliar.

The move that had caught my eye was clearly designed with multiple opponents in mind. More specifically, with getting mobbed in mind. Exactly what my limited arsenal of artes needed. So to test it I watched for a chance when both of my friends tried to attack me simultaneously from different directions.

Rooting myself so that my weight and balance was centered above my right foot, I shoved off from the ground with my left and twisted my body so that I spun in place. Oberon lashed out around me in a back hand strike, leaving a thick trail of green energy as I channeled aer through the blade. Yuri and Judith both had to jump back to avoid the energy, though not too far as it dissipated into the air quickly. I was left with a dizzying feeling of vertigo and wasn't quite facing the direction I'd started in. _Wheew, how does Link manage it?_

"Woah, you okay?" Yuri asked in concern. I blinked for a bit until there was only one of him.

"Euh, yeahh, I think I put too much aer into it, or didn't do it evenly enough..."

"Right, and the whole part where you were pretending you're a top had nothing to do with it."

"No, it did not. I learned how to not get dizzy from spinning when I was an idiot kid." Retrieving the manual from where I'd left it with Rita (who seemed a bit put out that nothing she considered interesting had happened yet), I opened it to the page describing the spin attack again. "Used to spend hours just spinning in place, or on a swing, or even in dance class."

"What a surprise. I never would have imagined you like dancing," Judith commented, brushing a microscopic speck off of her halberd.

I pulled a grimace. "Gave up my early plans of being a famous dancer when I realized it meant being watched by a load of people. Decided books and art were the way to go, since I wouldn't have to be around when people felt like appreciating or criticizing those."

"Aw, you're so shy," apparently satisfied that her weapon was up to her standards, Judith leveled it towards me and looked over at Yuri. "Shall we make it harder for her to catch us with that move again?"

"Yeah," Yuri grinned as he shifted his grip from casual to battle ready (a difference you only noticed if you'd seen him in enough fights), "What's the good in practicing if we made it too easy?"

"You both just like picking on me..." Any further complaints I could make were forgotten as I had to duck under Judith's halberd and back pedal to keep from tripping over my own feet. Then threw myself into a roll to dodge Yuri's attack from the side.

_This feels less like a spar and more like I'm being bullied..._

We spent a good hour practicing after that, Rita quite generously providing us with light by making torches out of dry brush and fireballs. Privately, I think she did that because of boredom and the lack of me doing anything scientifically interesting. After setting the last torch on fire, she'd started looking speculatively at me, as if thinking throwing something more dangerous and fiery at me might have better results.

I eventually got the spin attack down reasonably well. Though not without a few more false tries where I used too much aer, or some when I hadn't used nearly enough and would find myself nursing a bruise from the dull side of a katana or halberd staff. Once I got the hang of it I had the satisfaction that I would never have to worry about being mobbed again. Unless I was mobbed by something intelligent and/or acrobatic, as was proven when Judith took to vaulting through the air over me to whack me in the head mid spin.

It was when I was experimenting with revising the spin attack to fit with my Gemini daggers that Repede and Karol came to fetch us for dinner.

x x x

Feeling pleasantly full with a loose feeling in all my muscles from the day's workout, I picked a seat as near to the fire as I could bear so I'd have enough light to study my manual with. But eventually I found my vision drawn away from the black and white pages to the fire itself. Mesmerized, I stared through licking flames at the coals, watching the shifting play of black with yellow-orange. It brought to mind science class videos of volcanic eruptions, lava flows, sunspots and solar flares...

_Heheh, I'm gonna be so behind in my classes. Even if I can get Nevi to put me back _when_ I was (and screw laws of physics, he's a fairy), I'll still be in trouble. Can't remember anything I was studying._

That cynical thought made me uncomfortable, breaking through the hypnotic effect of the campfire. For some reassurance I tucked the manual back into my bag, trading it for my notebook full of Earth anecdotes. Flipping to a random page, I slowly read over my own writing as if I'd never seen it before. The sad part was, if it hadn't clearly been my own handwriting I could have easily believed it was the first time I'd read it.

_**I was never any good at climbing trees. Not even that one by grandma and grandpa's pond, with the fork in its trunk really close to the ground. When they decided to have it cut down, the family thought we should take a picture of all the kids in the tree first. One of my older cousins had to boost me up, which was embarrassing.**_

_I have cousins...and my grandparents have a pond..._ On the next page was a rough sketch of what must have been the pond, surrounded by pine trees and with a dock on one side. Under it was a note, scribbled in like an afterthought _**Peepers were practically deafening at night during the summer. Mom made a recording of them.**_

Turning the page I found another drawing, this one spanning both pages of the notebook and with more evident care for the details. It seemed the view was from the top of a hill or ravine, looking down. It wasn't steep, and at the bottom a smaller stream joined with a larger one. On all sides of the streams were trees and bushes and flowers growing wild. It looked like just a pleasant nature scene, except for a single touch of humanity in a tire swing hung from one of the trees. Under this picture was the simple caption _**The Backyard.**_

Lightly, my fingers touched the inked in lines, as if I could feel the bark of a tree or the water through the sketch.

"Hey, Letha?" Startled, I snapped my journal shut so quickly the sound it made was audible around the camp. Sheepishly, I rubbed a thumb against the spine as I looked up at Estelle with some embarrassment.

"Sorry, was thinking... Did you need me for something?" She looked at me blankly for a moment before remembering what she wanted.

"Oh, it wasn't anything much, I was just wondering if you'd help me practice a bit more..." her eyes had fallen to the book in my lap, curiosity poorly disguised. I tried to make it look like I hadn't noticed as I casually put it in my bag, fishing out the loose papers we'd been using for letter practice.

Estelle had been taking to cursive more easily than regular print, contrary to my expectations, but still made enough goofs that practice was necessary. My favorite was her mistake when writing out a capital S. I couldn't quite hold back the slight snort of laughter as I told her, "No, Estelle you have it backwards..."

"Oh," She scribbled it out a bit, seeming a bit put out that I found it funny.

"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just that..." I took the pen from her and wrote _**&**_ again. "This actually does have a meaning to it, though its entirely different. I was laughing at myself for forgetting to mention these shorthand symbols to you." I couldn't think of anything else to call it.

"More symbols? There's more than just the alphabet?"

"Yeah, well, they're largely used when writing the whole word out isn't efficient enough. Like this one here," I tapped on the page, "Is just another way of writing out 'and'." And that launched us into another set of lessons.

x x x

_It's a squirrel._

_But it's legs are so stubby, they might as well not exist._

_Making it look more like a fluffy, furry version of those tadpole things from way back._

_...Monsters are weird._

The train of thought was ended by a face full of fluffy, bushy tail. Fluffy, bushy tail was soon beating a hasty retreat as I menaced its owner with both Gemini.

"You better run, before I skewer you on a stick and talk Rita into roasting you for lunch!" Ah, the joys of traveling.

"Why don't you learn to do it yourself?" Rita bit off the last word as she raised a stalagmite under another squirrel that had been taunting her (must've had a death wish). Annoyance dealt with, she turned and gave me a scrutinizing look. "Huh, maybe you should learn..."

"Really? Do you think I'd be any good?" I'd mostly been trying to just concentrate on mastering my weapons without bothering to even think of adding spells to my already full plate, but if Rita was willing to teach me-

"I couldn't care less if you were good at it." Ouch. "But maybe it would help us figure out how you do that...thing," said with obvious vexation that she didn't get to see the permeability thing again the night before, "and control it."

"Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea." Judith was the nearest at that point, and joined in the conversation as the squirrels weren't nearly interesting enough. "Even if it doesn't help, it couldn't hurt to have a better understanding of how spells work."

"Good points," I conceded. Looked like I'd be biting off even more. Hopefully I could swallow it all. "So Master Rita, what's my first lesson?"

"First, don't call me 'master'."

"Gotcha." The fight was over, all the pesky little squirrels either killed or driven off, so we'd all fallen back into a big line of figurative ducklings following mama duck Repede.

For once, Rita and I were walking side by side. "Second, I can't give you any _real_ lessons until I have the time to make some tests."

"Tests?" I was curious and a little nervous about what the little genius had in mind. Was she thinking of something normal, like filling out a simple questionnaire with personal information, or was she going to go mad scientist on me and chase me down with needles and scalpels?

"Nothing much. Just to figure out what your affinity is and what spells would suit your personality best. I already have some idea, but I want to be sure."

"Affinity..." I thoughtfully rolled the word around. "Do you mean, like, elements or something?"

"Well yeah," she said in a d'uh implying tone, "but also if you're more suited to supportive spells or magical attacks. And which spells would work best with that, that passing through things ability."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense." I had to hide a grin at her clear annoyance with not knowing how to classify my anomaly of an ability.

"For now, you should try to focus on controlling aer without putting it in your weapons."

"Huh?" _Wait, but..._ "You use your scroll when casting spells," I pointed out. "So what does that have to do with it?"

"But you use that weird ability on yourself, not your weapons."

"Okay..." I was doubtful though. If aer was used to activate the ability, it would have to be a lot or else it would have happened more than just twice. But I hadn't suffered any aer sickness that would have to accompany it. But I should at least try it a few times, if only so Rita would be satisfied.

Staring at my feet in order not to get distracted by the passing scenery, I tried reaching for aer the way I'd grown accustomed to during battles. It felt odd doing it without the urgency of an actual fight, and odder still when considering less than half a year ago I would barely be able to imagine what it would feel like at all.

The aer came and I gathered it in. But once I had it I had no idea what to do, and without the direction normally provided by my dao or daggers the aer was left to build a slowly growing pressure in my chest. _This was a bad idea,_ I thought, but before I could panic and try to find someway to get rid of the aer something slammed into my side hard.

I flew sideways, throwing up a respectable cloud of dust when I hit the ground. The aer escaped, though it left the painful pressure in my chest as a token reminder that it had been there, and I lay on the ground for awhile with my eyes watering at the dirt falling in them.

"Didn't work, huh," Rita observed clinically.

"_No,_ Rita, it _didn't,_" I forced through gritted teeth. "Let's not try that again. And I think I owe you a punch now."

x x x

The Weasand of Cados was not as dark as I'd been expecting. There were strange luminescent cattails growing at regular intervals. Consistent enough that I'd be willing to believe their growth had been encouraged. Interesting.

But other than lights that may or may not have been arranged for the convenience of travelers, there was no sign of anyone who might have been there recently. We were alone with the echoing drip of water.

"No sign of him so far."

"Do you think he went this way?"

Mage and princess wandered to the front of the group, looking for any small sign of Regaey's passing.

"Maybe he used this ta get through ta the other side of the mountain," Raven speculated.

I pretended to consider that, "It would seem a lot easier than going over, as long as these caves just go straight through." In my mind, however, I was remembering how underground tunnels can go on for miles and miles in an area that if traveled above ground could be a fraction of that distance. The caves under the Misty Mountains, for a good literary example.

"But this cave is the Weasand of Cados," Karol protested. "A powerful monster called Pteropus lives here. It's supposed to be really dangerous." Which of course was _meant_ to make us question why such a timid man would try to escape this way, but only had me making odd mental connection between the words Pteropus and platypus. And when he weakly finished with, "Or at least that's what Nan told me," I was distracted again by wondering just _how_ the two of them got to discussing monsters on the other side of the world map.

"Perhaps he went inside without knowing that," Judith suggested, watching Repede sniffing around the cave entrance and following it deeper inside.

"Woof!" the dog bounded forward suddenly, half lost into a thin crevice that had been practically invisible in the wall, and backed out again with Regaey's collar caught firmly in his jaws.

"W-w-w-wait... P-please l-let me go," he begged.

Yuri nodded at Repede and his prize. "Looks like he was hiding out here hoping we'd just pass him by." If not for our favorite pooch and his nose, that _might_ have actually worked.

"Well now. Let's have a nice long chat." Raven clapped his hands together in a childlike display of excitement at odds with the malicious looking twist to his grin.

Yuri stepped forward, grabbing the front of Regaey's shirt so that the timid man was forced to look him in the face. "What were you trying to gain, setting us up like that back at the coliseum?"

_Trying to mess up Flynn's work to make him look bad. Cumore's orders, d'uh._ Probably. Wonder if that would make him squirm if I said it out loud... Nah, not tempting enough to risk.

"And give back that case!" Rita snarled, reminding us of her own set of priorities.

Regaey's eyes dropped as much as they could with Yuri up in his face. "You leave m-me no choice." At unspoken command, a group of Red-eyes appeared from more concealed niches in the wall, some even jumping down from higher points near the ceilings roof. To the shock of everyone but me. One struck out at Yuri, caught flat footed he had to let go of Regaey in order to avoid being hit.

"Leviathan's Claw?" Estelle's cry of surprise had echoed barely twice when they rushed us.

I blocked pair of wave bladed knives, catching them on my daggers, and was deadlocked with one of the assassins. Who upon such close examination proved to have a nasty looking scar across his right cheek and the bridge of his nose. Teeth bared in a mocking smile and he laughed at me.

"Fancy meeting you here, little bird!"

"Ah hell..."

x x x

* Umm, I looked up what those are supposed to be called. Just a quick, not very thorough check: Horse Knife, Chai Dao, Thieves' Encampment Sword, Pu Dao... apparently a type of Tai Dao (Long handled broadsword)... If anyone is interested, they can research it some more on their own. I think the name Horse Knife is enough to figure out what it was used for.

Anyone guessed that the sparring suggestion was Yuri's failed attempt to get Letha alone for an interrogation? Better luck next time~

And yeeah, the return of Birdman the Red-eyes! I gotta get around to wrapping things up with him before he become a carbon copy of Zagi.

Letha: Too late.


	38. Chapter 38: Pardonez mon Francais

Yeah...took me long enough, didn't it?

Letha: Stop neglecting us!

Sylph: Silence! I'm earning income!

Letha: *Glaring* …

Sylph: ...Alright, I also got sucked into TV Tropes again... And there was that Doctor Who marathon... And other stuff...

And thanks again to hinafanboy08, for informing that the knives the Red-eyes use are called Kataar (katar, katara, more research to keep Sylph happy~). But Letha is kataar ignorant and sadly must remain so...

Quite a few more pictures up on Deviantart. As several people have already noticed.

Okay, I'm gonna at least give this a try and hope it doesn't turn into a flop and waste our time. I'm holding a contest. Everyone and anyone interested can write a one shot that takes place in the FTaBV universe. Not limited to whether you have a fanfiction account, just as long as you provide an easy link to wherever the story is posted and make sure it's clear that Fairy Tales and Brave Vesperia is the original fic.

The one shot could be about a particular scene that interested you from the point of view of someone besides Letha. Or make up an original scene you can imagine playing out. Heck, make up an original 'what if' scenario of something you'd _like_ to see, no matter how off the wall bizarre, with the understanding that there should be a note somewhere that its not canon to the main fic. (I know some of you are wondering this. YES, pairings are allowed. It just won't be canon.)

And after they're all up I'd set up a poll for people to vote on their favorite one shot spin off. Winner gets a minor cameo for the character of their choice (an existing character or even an OC) in the main fic and/or the privilege of giving Brave Vesperia a guild job (doesn't even have to be one from the game). I haven't decided on a deadline, but I'll try to give you all lots of time. For now, there'll be a poll in my profile. Go and clicky if you plan on entering! Or just tell me you think I'm nuts...

Any questions, send me a PM. And feel free to pester Letha on her formspring to get relevant information or likely reactions.

Letha: Why are you doing this to us?

Sylph: To keep EVERYONE on their toes!

...

Angelic:

O ,o Just what kind of interrogation are _you_ thinking of? Something about the way you said that was kinda creepy...shipping fangirl creepy...quit corrupting my brain! ...Yeah, if the contest actually gets anywhere I can expect more corrupting influences...

...Birdman missed you. He missed all of you guys. :3

x x x

Chapter 38: Pardonez mon Francais

x x x

There was more than enough of a distraction for 'Regaey' to make his escape. The others made the effort to try and stop him, but failed to get past the veritable wall of assassins making it their business to get in our way. I was totally absorbed in the fact that Birdman was bent on mincing me with his fancy knives.

His knives were caught on my daggers with his full force behind them. I'd missed the chance to do any aikido momentum redirections or whatever, leaving me committed to what amounted to a contest of brute strength. Which I'd lose before much longer.

_Urrrgh, I need to break this off without getting something chopped off in the process! Well, I could always try..._ I spat in his face. What I could see of his expression twisted in disgust as he involuntarily drew back just a little. The pressure on my daggers eased, and I took the chance to shift my stance and kick my right leg up so that my shin connected hard with his ribs.

Well, that made my leg tingle uncomfortably, and later I'd have a bruise to show for it. But it did more damage to him than me and ended our stalemate nicely. Both of us backed away a few feet, me making sure my leg wasn't going to give out on me, Birdman wiping the saliva from his face with the back of his hand while trying not to let on how much my kick had hurt. He glared at me. Or was probably glaring behind those red lenses in his mask. Seriously, why do the Red-eyes have those red eyes? Do they have some function like night vision or something?

That would actually make sense for a group of assassins...

My eyes flickered away from Birdman for a moment to assess how everyone else was faring. What I saw wasn't exactly disheartening, but we were clearly outnumbered by the Red-eyes. I wasn't too worried just yet, though, since we normally were outnumbered by these guys and still came out on top. And this time their greater numbers would be a disadvantage in the confined space of the cavern tunnel. Certainly, none of the others looked any worse off than I was.

Though I was a bit concerned about the new pair of Red-eyes that were trying to circle around me. For some reason they were holding back. As if giving Birdman the chance to satisfy his vengeful homicidal anger. Yay for considerate people.

Even if it didn't look like they were planning on trying anything yet, I still didn't like the vulture impressions. As a precaution I took a few edging steps to put the cave wall at my back so no one could get behind me.

"Distractions are gonna kill you, bird!" Birdman taunted as the multiple points of his weapons raked towards me. Not caught by surprise this time, I was able to deflect them off to one side so that one even bounced off the wall behind me, scraping off grains of sediment and leaving scratches in the stone. He swept his blades sideways to try and catch me before I could escape his range.

"Hey, I just figured it out!" I chirped cheerfully. The unexpected mood change confused him, and he wavered a moment. Just long enough for me to skip back a bit like he'd been trying to prevent. "You _totally_ remind me of Voldo from Soul Calibur!"

He snarled, and for a brief second I wondered if he could possibly know who Voldo was (_my God, Voldo the creeper, practically molests the other characters_). "Bitch, I should have killed you long ago!" Birdman threw himself at me in an energetic display of stabbing knives that I decided would be wisest to dodge.

"You know what they say about hindsight and the number twenty!" _Ooh, he clipped me that time!_ I could feel the warm blood dripping sluggishly down my left cheek.

"Jasper!" one of the other Red-eyes barked, "Don't get carried away!"

"We're supposed to take her alive!" the other added to the scolding.

_Now isn't this interesting. There _are_ standing orders to catch me, and Birdman is actually Jasper._ It was kinda weird to think of him by any other name though.

"Sure, but that doesn't mean I can't have some _fun_ to pay her back first," Birdman-Jasper hissed. I swallowed nervously.

But it wasn't until I heard a familiar, shrill voice calling out "Ground Dasher!" that I was actually frightened. The ground shook violently beneath my feet and large pieces of the ceiling were knocked loose and sent crashing down. All fighting stopped briefly as everyone desperately danced around to avoid getting flattened, impaled on stalagmite spears appearing out of nowhere, or falling into one of the cracks that opened in the floor.

"Knock it off, Rita!" Yuri shouted.

"This jerk was asking for it!" she shouted back indignantly. I wondered just what her opponent did... Something bumped against my back, making me whirl around and prepare to gut whatever it was with a Gemini. I stopped myself just in time when I realized it was Karol.

I blew a forceful exhalation in both relief and an attempt to calm my jumpy nerves. "Whew, don't sneak up on me," I chided as we both turned so that we stood back to back. We weren't near enough to any of the walls to use them for protection and now had both my little party of enemies plus the pair that Karol had been trying to deal with. Though they were sporting some nasty holes in their clothes with bloody edges, suggesting the little ace had bashed them with his mace a few times. _Ooh, a few of the points of their blades are missing! Ha ha, Karol broke your fancy knives!_

Jasper-Bird rushed again, a vicious smile on his face. I was all set to block him again when to my confusion he spun and dipped away to the side. And struck out at Karol, who was concentrating on his own opponents. "Crap!"

Lurching back and sideways, I just barely managed to intercept him before he could hurt Karol. Unfortunately, I was not properly braced to deal with his momentum, and my lack of balance sent me tumbling backwards with Jasp-Bird coming along for the ride. And we both landed on top of Karol, who was knocked over by our combined weight. He fell over too, and then we were all falling, and my last clear thought was _Dammit, Rita!_ as I realized we were all falling down one of those cracks her Ground Dasher attack had opened up.

x x x

"Nnngh..." my vision was swimming but fortunately I didn't totally black out. The fall was no more than a confused jumble of limbs, rocks, and _goddamned gravity_ in my memory. The sound of something else moving somewhere nearby, crunching boots and the rattle of stones rolling, was good incentive to shake off my own daze fast. Arms and legs flailing a bit, I got back to my feet and brandished my Gemini. I could see in the faint cattail lights the others that had taken the fall with me, and my heart sank.

The one moving around was Jasp-Birdman, spitting out dust while shaking his head. But even more worrying was the second person. Karol was lying still on the floor and I could only hope he was just knocked unconscious in the fall. Birdman...Jasper...(_screw it_), _Birdman_ didn't look like he'd held up well with the unexpected pitfall. The coattails that were a part of the Red-eyes uniform were tattered, his hood ripped completely off, and most of his mask was missing so that it was no more than a high collar fitted to his neck.

Seeing his face for the first time stunned me, though it was mostly shadowed and dim from the minimal lighting available. But I could see that his hair was short and black in contrast with his eerily pale eyes. Very pale, very cold eyes that were narrowing dangerously at me. And his thin lips were spreading in such a wide smile that the scar actually curved a bit.

"Heheheh. No one to stop me from killing you down here," he gloated, "And I can just tell 'em you had an 'accident'."

_Uh oh._ I had just lost a layer of defense. Fighting off someone who's trying to take you alive is a lot easier than fighting off someone who wants you dead more than anything. Frantic now, my hands scrabbled across the stone floor while trying to find my daggers. Birdman laughed at my near panicked state.

He dove towards me, his own hands empty but still stretching towards me with the promise of a painful death. I tried to escape, crawling backwards and kicking at him, but my hand landed on a piece of rubble that rolled and caused my arm to fly out to the side and drop me. And then Birdman had both his hands around my neck, squeezing down hard.

_NO!_

The spike of pure fear was accompanied by a flare of heat from my left hand, and suddenly the pressure around my throat disappeared. "What?" Birdman's eyes widened in confusion. I didn't stop to wonder about his distress, or about why he'd stopped trying to strangle me. Instead I flung my hands out wildly to try and get him off me. My fear surged again as my hands didn't make contact with anything. When one finally brushed against something I reflexively grabbed at it thinking to perhaps smash it against Birdman's head to knock him away.

But when my fist closed he screamed in pain, startling me so that my hand clenched tighter and jerked slightly. His scream was even louder, and then he slumped forward in silence. My mind felt numb, slow to catch up with what had just happened. But when it got there I realized my hand was sticking out of Birdman's chest. I'd gone all intangible again, causing his hands to pass through my neck and my own to pass through him.

And I had crushed his heart in one of my fists.

Jerkily I let go and pulled my hand back out, the heat leaving my left hand soon after. The body slid off me and fell to the side, expression twisted in pain and confusion. Shuddering, I dragged myself away from the corpse, too weak with reaction to stand and walk away. Finally I found my Gemini daggers where they landed in a pile of rocks. I looked at them a touch bitterly. _Where were you when I needed you?_

I couldn't let myself dwell on it. The most important thing was to make sure Karol was okay and to find our way back up to the others. Shaking myself, I sheathed the daggers and concentrated on being productive.

Karol was still out but didn't have any serious injuries that I could find. And after a cursory search (avoiding Birdman's body as much as possible) I couldn't find either of our bags. In fact, we didn't seem to have Karol's weapon either.

_Well, less to carry_.

In theory, I could pick up and carry a man twice my size with aikido. In practice, my limit had been our instructor, who was lean and only a few inches taller than me. Karol, however, wouldn't be too much of a problem since I estimated him weighing about as much as the smallest girl in our class. At most. Presuming we weren't attacked by anything, things should work out.

Once I had him settled as comfortably as possible on my back I considered my options in routes. Three tunnels, though one was hardly more than a crack in the wall. I tried to determine if they were any noticeable difference in gradients (one sloping up more than another at all) or if either smelled like it had fresher air.

One was maybe better than the others, or I was fooling myself, but it was better than nothing. "C'mon, boyo," I said to the unconscious kid on my back, "Let's go hunt down the plot again."

x x x

I had to fight only twice so far. Eggbears and spiders and bats, oh my! When I could I just tried to sneak past or flat out outrun monsters I encountered, and carefully deposited Karol on the ground before the unavoidable ones caught up. I was getting worried about him though. Shouldn't he be waking up soon? Or was his head hit worse than I thought? But there wasn't anything I could do other than try to get him back to Estelle as fast as possible.

When he finally began stirring I was incredibly relieved, feeling as if there was less weight on my shoulders (and hopefully I could put him down so that would be literal). "Wh-wha happen'?" he slurred a bit. "Wha's tha soun'?"

I coughed a bit self consciously, realizing I'd been humming for awhile. The music box melody from one of the Silent Hill games. "Sorry, that was me. And we fell down a hole during that fight with the Red-eyes."

"Oh, right..." … "You smell kind of nice."

_Pfft!_ "Sounds like you either have a concussion, or you've been hanging around Raven too much. Thank you, though."

"I think I'm gonna barf..."

"Ho-kay, ride's over!" I knelt down and let Karol slide off my back. He stumbled over to the tunnel wall and was sick for a bit. Rather than observe that, I wandered off a bit on the ostensible excuse of keeping watch for monsters. When I heard the uneven scuffing of feet on grainy stone floor I turned and found him wiping his mouth on his sleeve while trying to walk towards me in a straight line (which was almost as wobbly as if he'd been wearing beer goggles). Wordlessly, I handed him an apple gel. It was the last one I'd been carrying on me (the rest were in my bag) but he probably needed it. At the very least it would take the sour taste out of his mouth.

"Doing better?"

"Yeah..." Karol looked around, "Where are the others? And my stuff?"

I shrugged, "Hopefully still with the others. And hopefully we'll find them soon."

"But what'll we do if monsters attack?"

"That's easy. Fight back." I unbuckled Oberon's belt and handed it to Karol. "Play nice now. This guy isn't up to general roughhousing."

"O-okay." He turned the sheathed sword over in his hands a few times as if trying to figure out what to do with it. The belt wasn't made so the sword could be worn across the back and the dao was too long for him to strap to his waist. He'd just end up tripping over it that way. In the end he opted for just keeping it in hand like Yuri.

Then the ace looked at me a bit curiously. "Hey, I know we fell and all, but how'd that happen? Last thing I remember was getting ready to try a new move." Remembering that it was pretty much my fault, I had the urge to divert the question.

"New move?"

"Yeah, Roaring Dragon Blow!" he exclaimed excitedly. "It's like woah! And then it's like bam! And then it's all woah again!"

"Huh?" I didn't understand that at all.

"It kind of makes me dizzy afterwards," he admitted. A small noise echoed through the tunnels, probably caused by a distant monster, and made him start a bit. "S-so we're the only ones who fell?"

I remembered the lifeless body of Birdman...of Jasper back where I'd left it. Where it would stay until monsters cleaned the bones. "Yeah, just us..."

For a moment the thought of being lost and alone in these tunnels seemed to press down too heavily on him, but then he straightened and looked me in the eye. "We should probably go. The sooner we find a way out, the sooner we can meet the others again." I blinked in surprise, then smiled at him.

"Right-o, boss!" And his small chest puffed out slightly at the title. He even took the lead, though he occasionally needed to use Oberon like a cane to get him through dizzy spells.

_Heheh, I feel kinda proud of him. Our little guy is growing up so fast!_

"Wuaagh! Spider!"

I sighed as the little brunet went zipping back behind me. _Right, the bug spray Rita gave him is back in his bag..._

x x x_  
_

_**What If...**_

_Karol: You sure do know some weird stories. Especially this new one with the flying ship!_

_Letha: Ah ha ha, yeah... Sophia's book collection was full of some pretty wild stuff._

_Karol: I mean, people who live on different worlds? That's pretty crazy!_

_Letha: ...Hey, Ace. What if you met someone who said they were from a different world? Like me, for instance._

_Karol: Wha-oh! I get it, you're trying to trick me again!_

_Letha: Er, yeah! You got me!_

_Karol: Ha, come on! Like I'd ever fall for something like that!_

_Letha: Right..._

x x x

"-'Let's see what a man like you would kill for,' and then, ignoring Simon's protests, Mal kicked the top off.

"And it was to the crew's _complete_ shock when inside the crate wasn't smuggled goods, but a _girl_."

"A girl?" Karol repeated, surprised but not fully getting why it was a big deal.

"Ace, they had a federation mole on board that was after good doctor Simon, who turns out to be smuggling a _girl_," I left out the part about her being naked, "in his luggage. Most likely explanation is slavery and human trade."

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'. And while Captain Mal was 'nicely' asking him what the hell this was all about, and Jayne and Zoe were menacing him with their guns, the girl suddenly bolts upright screaming her head off.

"Startled the crew enough that Simon was able to run to the girl without them shooting him. They were even more surprised by how gently he held her and calmed her down. He promised her that it was safe and that 'they' were gone."

"Safe? From who?"

"No getting ahead of the story. And when Mal demanded what the hell that was about, Simon very seriously informed them all that the girl was his sister."

"Woah, really?"

"Yup. It was clear that there was a lot more going on so they took a time out to get the whole story. Simon actually started his explanation by making it clear how wealthy his family was, how highly educated he'd been, and what a promising medical career he'd had before him. And then claims that his younger sister, River, was a genius who made him look like an idiot in comparison.

"She'd caught the eye of the empire and been brought into a special program for the young and 'gifted'. But in reality that program was a cover for government funded human experiments. Simon had used all his resources, gave up his career, and been disowned by his own family in order to rescue her."

"Wow..." We walked in silence for a few moments as I let all that sink in. And took a chance to concentrate on breathing. We'd been consistently climbing an upward slope, which was encouraging. "Is it, you know..._normal_ for family to be like that?"

I had to consider his question for a moment. "...Yes and no. Being willing to give up that much for someone depends on your own character and morals, but pretty much everyone has strong feelings where it concerns their families." I paused and made a hushing sound, thinking I'd heard something. When I didn't hear anything else I shrugged it off as a false alarm. "Though the definition of family doesn't have to be related by blood. It can be a tight knit group where everyone feels connected, for better or worse."

"I think I get what you mean..." Karol mused aloud. "I've never really had a family, so I don't know for sure, but I always thought about what it might be like..."

I grinned and teased him with, "Aww yeah, I'm sure you were always imagining what it would be like to start up a family with Nan some day."

"Wha-no! No, I didn't mean-you got it wrong!" he spluttered.

"You just make it too easy sometimes," I giggled. My laughter changed to hacking that had me hunching my shoulders and doubling over slightly. This, however, I regarded as a _good_ sign since it meant we were near that aer krene that's supposed to go crazy when Regaey/Yeager runs past it with that apatheia in a box.

"Are you okay?" Karol hovered nearby, very helpfully trying to discover a way to help cure aer sickness.

"Ugh, yeah, and I think we're almost out of here..." After the initial flare of _sudden pain_ passed and I got used to the familiar ache (really not all that bad, it was just unexpected), I straightened and we resumed our dogged trek through the Weasand's tunnels. We were still moving steadily upwards. I couldn't really remember any of the game dungeon maps, so I wasn't really able to hazard a guess as to where we might come out. But I had to guess that our tunnel must connect to the room with the aer krene or else I wouldn't be feeling crappy. I mean, I didn't _think_ it was possible to get aer sickness when the source was on the other side of a thick stone wall.

And, just as suddenly as it came, the aer sickness was gone! _Uh what? Oh yes, Khroma deals with the rampant krene rather promptly. Bless her._ Arguably, the aer sickness could have provided a rough sense of direction to follow. Much like my tattoo. But really, screw that!

It was probably only a few more minutes before we came to the end of our tunnel, its entrance apparent from the ambient glow indicating a greater source of light than the rare luminescent cattail. We both walked a bit faster in our eagerness, and at the last second I had to grab Karol to keep him from falling off the drop off. The tunnel opened into a wide cavern with a floor no less than six feet below our little hole in the wall. Fortunately, not so far down as to make it one's final step...

I helped Karol down as much as I could, gripping his hand in both of mine as he went backwards over the edge until he could jump down from a lower height. Myself, I just jumped. _Meh, no different from jumping off the bleachers back in gym...wait, I'm thinking of the indoor bleachers. Outdoor ones were higher..._

Still trying to figure out why I was jumping off bleachers in my memory, I bumped into Karol before I realized he had stopped walking.

"Hey! That's the guy that was at Keiv Moc!"

"Hm?" snapped back to the present I finally focused on where I was. The cavern floor was better described as a series of naturally formed walkways that dropped off to ominously murky depths. What _looked_ like water was pooled beneath them, but closer inspection confirmed that it was, in fact, aer in a denser than normal form. And standing in the middle of a barely submerged walkway was Duke. He was pensively studying the aer at his feet and didn't seem to have noticed us yet.

_Nooow, I wonder if it's better to just walk on by without saying anything, or to try talking to him..._ I opted to at least try for the walk by, and if he still didn't notice us then fine. Quietly, I placed a hand on Karol's shoulder and nudged him along.

Of course something had to go wrong. The warning signs had gone completely over my head in the surprise of seeing Duke. But the moment my foot touched the semi gaseous, semi liquid aer there was another surge of muted pain centered in my chest. I'd had worse, and it probably would have been exponentially harder to bear if I'd been there earlier, but the unexpected nature of the attack had me gasping and stumbling down to my knees. Which put my hands and knees into the aer and made matters even worse.

"Letha! Are you okay?"

_Why yes, Karol, perfectly fine. I just had the sudden urge to study the rock and see if it could be igneous or metamorphic. Perhaps even some subcategory of sedimentary formed by aer currents._ I was busy biting back any more pained noises and so fortunately didn't voice that sarcastically technical retort.

Black and red framed by long tendrils of white appeared at the edge of my vision. "I thought I told you... Stay away from the aer krene." His epic deep monotone carried overtones of annoyance, suffering patience, and a touch of bemusement at finding us in such an out of the way place.

"Oh, but it's just so pretty!" _I did not just say that... And I'm certainly not looking up to see how he took that._ "And as much as I'd love to take your 'advice'," said in a way that made it clear 'order' should have been in its place, "we really need to cross and regroup with our friends."

"Can you be certain you'll find them without the need to come back?" Now I dared to look up at him through the cover of my own dark hair. Mostly I could only make out his pale face and paler hair, glowing eerily in the light of the cattails. Cripes, the man looked supernatural. And feminine. He was damn lucky he had such an unmistakably masculine voice to balance out his extremely fine facial features.

"...Kogorh is ahead. If they haven't already gone this way they'll still try to get to the desert soon for other business. We'll meet up sooner or later." And no need to say that I knew it should be sooner. And never mind that we'd come back through the Weasand on the return trip to Nordopolica.

And _whoops!_ A deceptively slender yet strong hand caught me around the arm and lifted me back onto my feet. Duke's arm was around my shoulders, somehow making even less physical contact than should be possible in that position, and was propelling me forward. The patter of feet behind us was Karol trying to keep up.

Crossing the aer submerged walkway didn't take long, and the moment my feet were clear Duke's arm vanished from around my shoulders. "Now leave." He was already halfway back across the krene by the time I turned around.

"Um, thank you!" I called out politely, still rather perplexed by what had just happened. Duke, of course, never even acknowledged me.

"What was that all about?" Karol wondered aloud.

"Beats me." Well, Duke being Duke wasn't any surprise. And at least I had a very rough idea of where we were so it shouldn't be long before we caught up to the others.

x x x

Voices were echoing down to us from up ahead. Most of what they were saying wasn't clear enough, but I was able to make some of it out by virtue of having prior knowledge. "I'll have to show you my really real power...!"

"What's so funny?" Karol seemed caught between concern and wariness (for my potential insanity I suppose) when I paused and doubled over yet again. This time clearly trying to hold in laughter.

"Oh, nothing, nothing..." _'Really real power'? Are you SERIOUS?_ I just can't hear that line without cracking up. Something about the way he says it. Maybe it was a bit of Yeager shining through the Regaey disguise. "It sounds like they're up ahead. Let's hurry!"

Sure enough, the tunnel we were in opened out into a another cave, this one with countless bats flitting around the stalagtites hanging from the ceiling. At all times there was a cloud of bats hovering in front of the only other way out of the room, as if intentionally trying to block escape from the Weasand. Ignoring the bats, as they weren't openly hostile as of yet, the Brave Vesperia group were facing off against Yeager. He must have just revealed his identity and it seemed the shock hadn't completely passed yet. Estelle was clutching that red box he'd stolen, so at least it had been reclaimed on schedule.

Karol took it all in with bewilderment, "What's Yeager doing here?" The others hadn't noticed our arrival yet. Well, Yeager might have, but he didn't immediately draw attention to us. Instead he was busy trying to shake a few skeletons out of Yuri's closet.

"-Oh me oh my, how terribly frightening. I don't know what I'd do if I were to end up like poor Ragou."

What felt like an electric shock seared through me. Yeager is awesome in the game and all, but personal experience had given me no solid reasons to empathize with him. On the contrary, I felt compelled to head off the mind games he was trying to play on my _friends_.

"What do you-" Estelle started to ask, but I rudely cut her off (_sorry dear, but you're playing into his hands_) to shout across the room.

"Hey YEAGER! I've got a bone to pick with you about one of your subordinates!" Heads whipped around to look at us _so_ fast...

Yeager didn't look at all surprised, as if he'd been expecting Karol and me to show up soon. Or had seen us standing there all 'D'uhh' for a minute. Though it seemed he was ignoring the little ace at my side (who looked just as surprised at my outburst as the others).

"Ah, sehr gut meine fraulein," he purred, flicking that ostentatious lock of hair slightly. "For a moment I was afraid I would have to inform a certain friend of mine that meeting with you would be...impossible. Perhaps your enthusiastic friend was a bit overwhelming in his attentions, hmm?"

Again I thought of Jasper, no longer mis-affectionately named Birdman, and felt cold anger at Yeager for bringing him along when the ethnically confused bastard clearly knew about Jasper's vendetta against me. "Votre faire foutre!" I hissed at him. While Yeager and I, er, 'talked', Karol and I slowly walked forward to join the rest of the group, keeping our eyes locked on Yeager the whole while. Well, mine were locked on him, but I figured it was fifty fifty whether anyone else was watching him or me.

"Nein, I must decline," _Aaarrgh at his smugness!_ "And, for some friendly advice, I wouldn't recommend you interrupt conversations that do not concern you. Such hastiness tends to lead to misunderstandings, ja?"

I flushed angrily, "Fermez la bouche ou je vais la fermer pour vous!"

He wasn't anywhere in my peripheral vision, but I could still tell when Yuri leaned in a bit towards the group (most likely towards Estelle or Rita) and muttered, "Hey, got any idea what she's even saying?"

"No," the princess whispered back, "But I think she talked like this once before."

"Yeah, I remember that too."

"Do any of you have my weapon?"

"What, didja lose it? Sorry, we've only got yer bags."

"Aww, I liked that one..."

Yeager smiled, a strangely indolent yet cunning expression. _Hmm, I do believe the cliché phrase is 'cat got the canary'. Appropriate enough, if your cat was the head of an assassin guild of kitties and used a big ass scythe to catch that canary._

"Now, I really must be going. Always must be busy and on the go, you know?" That last bit was carelessly tossed to us over Yeager's shoulder as he approached the bat blocked exit of the cave. The bats went into a frenzy of flapping wings and high pitched screeches. Some practically flung themselves at Yeager, which he neatly avoided, though Estelle gasped and reached out a bit.

"Oh... Not that way!"

"Yeager!" the red and green haired twins (are they twins? I never remember for sure) leaped in from the side where'd they'd been concealed in the shadows behind some stalagmites. In near perfect synchronization they took fighting stances to menace us with their slender rapiers.

"Ta daah, the reinforcements have arrived!" the green haired one crowed. I dunno, they're always together so I never managed to remember which was Gauche and which was Droite.

"Gauche, Droite—the rest I leave up to you."

"As you wish," red hair acknowledged.

"Aye aye, sir," green hair giggled.

"See you in the funny papers, leibchen!" Yeager again ran for the exit, and this time when the bats swooped towards him they met instead the whirling blades of the fierce twins covering his retreat. And even while preoccupied with the bats, the girls maintained their position between us and their leader. But soon there were more pressing concerns for all of us (minus the now absent Yeager) to worry about.

As if enraged at his escape, the bats all clumped together into a great mass that began to exude a sort of _darkness_. Saying they were shrouded in smoke wasn't quite right, more like they just kinda blurred together as a large smear the eye couldn't register. Like spots in your vision. Though at the same time, still smoky... When I start contradiction my own descriptions, you know it's weird.

"That's him!" Karol realized with a start. "It's Pteropus!" There was a pulsing shock wave that flung Gauche and Droite back from the monster. Red hair hit a stalagmite, hard, and her sister slammed into her bare seconds afterwards. Neither looked to still be conscious after that.

Estelle rushed towards them immediately, catching the eye of Pteropus. It, um, gravitated (for lack of a better word) towards her, but jerked and stopped short. Behind it was Yuri, his katana buried deep in what should be its back. But its back became its front as it just turned around to face him, rotating with the katana still stuck in it and not moving. Unflappable Yuri seemed a mite disturbed by that.

Pteropus lifted one, um, arm-appendage to give Yuri a smack down with. And got an arrow in the _face_ and a knife wielding dog in the _stomach_. Meanwhile, Judith and I had run around behind it like Yuri had. Judy leaped into the air to cut a wide arc through the back of its shoulders while I dug both of my daggers in where its lower back should be and wrenched them apart from each other.

Karol was standing by Estelle, Oberon in both hands and ready to protect her while she was healing the girls. Rita and Raven were also in that general area. So the four of them were the only ones that had time to drop to the ground and avoid a second shock wave.

I was thrown backwards, and managed to convert my momentum into backward rolls in order to regain control before I hit anything. As I came back up onto my knees I saw both Yuri and Judith recovering on their own, so no worries there. Instead, I had to worry about the fact that Pteropus was conspicuously absent, and instead there was a swarm of bats. A swarm that broke up into smaller swarms, one for each of us. And my own personal swarm was flying right at my face.

_OH EFF, this is gonna be hella worse than any friggin' MOSQUITO._

x x x

Letha: _Jasper_?

Sylph: Yes, Jasper.

Letha: ...Duke?

Sylph: I don't know, what the hell, it got away from me and got all weird.

Yeah, this was hard to write mainly because of first Duke, who was uncooperative and simply refused to go along with any conversation attempts. Then Yeager was all, "Hmm, and why _should_ I be cooperating with you, Sylph?"

*Sigh* I feel like I'm butchering Firefly. I highly recommend you all watch it, so you can properly appreciate it.

Pardonez mon Francais, Pardon my French. I seem to remember more of those classes than I thought. My German is rusty though. I apologize to native speakers if I'm mistaken and got something wrong for either language.

"_Sehr gut meine fraulein_,"- Where I most likely made mistakes if I made any. Though I doubt Yeager's German is perfect to begin with. Means "Very good my lady."

"_Votre faire foutre!_"- You can probably guess based on context. More or less means "Fuck you!" We finished class early, so our teacher decided to teach us some swears.

"_Fermez la bouche ou je vais la fermer pour vous!_"- Quite literally means "Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you!" My brothers know this one...

Remember! Contest! Pretty much anything goes (T rating), and check my profile for that poll and the link to Letha's formspring! And don't be afraid to ask me any questions in an email.


	39. Chapter 39: Cacti Crustaceans and Curry

__Goddamned N key came off my laptop again. I can't get it back on this time. :[ Internet connection is also being shoddy.

First entry to the One Shot Spin Off contest! "Father" by AccessBlade! Her fic made some of you very happy indeed. Enjoy shippers, as I still have no plans to make that pairing canon. Despite the building efforts to convince me otherwise...

And the second entry is "Fun at the Inn" by Rogue Kaiser! Some action in this one, and another pairing! (To be fair, I'm not confirming this pairing either.)

Third entry is "Return to the Inn in Dahngrest" by Forscythe! Lovely tale of humor and revenge! And consequences for your actions...

Fourth entry, "Welcome to Letha's hair salon" by Peachounette78. Guess you weren't fast enough, Dreamer. But who's to say this isn't a regular occurrence?

Fifth entry, "Of Stars in a Fairy Tale" by Shiroi Iyasu. In which Letha proves to be not so alone in her hatred of power tripping fairies.

I'm really feeling the love here, guys! ^_^ I have not settled on a deadline yet, so anyone still interested has time. Tentatively, I should probably say to pretend you have until the end of May.

All entries (and links to entries) are listed in my profile along with the rules and answered questions about the contest. Check in regularly for updates!

_Are OCs allowed?_ Yes! Though don't expect to see them in the main fic (unless you win and request an OC cameo for your prize).

_Can I write more than one entry?_ Yeah, but we're limiting it at two right now. Unless you guys all want to make me an extremely happy Sylph and write a ton of entries.

Wrote myself into a bit of a corner on this one, so that slowed me up a bit. Had to push something ahead a bit to get myself out of it.

Oh! And Peachounette78 informs me that "Va te faire foutre" is what they actually say. Letha fail! She and Yeager are such posers...

Angelic: Huh, somehow I didn't even notice it wasn't signed. I just knew it was you! Have fun with the contest, both reading the entries *coughcough* and perhaps trying your hand at it.

A very selfish person complimented my characterization of the game characters in the omakes! Yeah, that line makes me grin like an easily amused idiot.

And a Passing stranger made a comment about Al actually being Yeager before he was revealed as a fairy. Now that connection is something I kinda wish I thought of back then...

x x x

Chapter 39: Cacti Crustaceans and Curry

x x x

"_Bats are just mice with wings" said Catwoman. Well, I wish I had a fucking truckload of flying mousetraps!_

I'd never really cared either way about bats before. But they'd at least had the association with Batman going for them. Getting buffeted from all directions by wings and nipped by fangs, however, weighed a bit more heavily on the scale than being the name sake of the Dark Knight.

"Urgh-off-ge' off me NOW!" Needing something more convincing than flailing arms and smothered curses, I lifted both Gemini and threw my whole body into a twirling spin. It was the dagger variation of the Spin Attack I'd been trying to work out with Yuri and Judith the day before. The trail of aer was smaller, but there were two now forming a corkscrew like spiral around me.

The swarm backed off a bit, the closest to me squealing as the sheer mass of their fellows prevented them from completely escaping the attack. For a moment I reveled in my accomplishment as I prepared to go slash happy through the fodder.

Then one of the bats screeched into my face. It must have been an aer fueled attack because besides a splitting pain in my ears and head it created a blast of wind that knocked me backwards. It also caused the cut on my left cheek and several new ones to open and bleed again. Another bat screeched, and another sharp gust bowled me over. Once down, the bats all swarmed me again. I would have gladly spiral spinned them again, but was not in the greatest starting position for that.

"Spiral Flare!"

I found myself patting at my head to make sure my hair hadn't caught fire as crisped bats fell to the ground around me. They hadn't all been killed, but enough were dead or injured so that the others shot up to the safety of the ceiling for a moment. I took the chance to scramble over towards Rita, who had paid for helping me by letting her own swarm in too close to safely cast spells at. Instead she was smashing several of them with one of her books.

It's some indication of how much of a bibliophile I am when my thoughts were, _I have to save the book!...and Rita!_

"Thanks for the save!" I returned the favor by slashing down a few of the bats before they realized there was another enemy coming up behind them.

"Less yapping, more fighting!" The book hit a bat's wing at an angle that made it crunch and spiral to the ground, its unharmed wing flapping uselessly. Once it hit the ground she stomped on it and swung the book to smack away another bat.

"Heheh, you're almost as effective in a fight with only a book and no magic at all." Gemini Left sliced through the membrane of another bat's wing, almost taking the whole thing off. Gemini Right stabbed up into a mouth just as it was opened to shriek another attack at us. The blade came away with blood and gray matter. _Yech._

"Shaddup!" Smash. Another bat down. But the bats that had been spooked away by the Spiral Flare attack had gotten bold again with the lack of any follow up blasts of fiery death, and flocked to us en masse again. Frustrated, Rita snapped, "Do that spinning attack again!"

"But-" I wanted to protest that I might hit her, but she book-smacked another bat right into my _face_. I swear she did it on purpose!

Promising myself I'd get her for that later, I prepared to let loose another spiraling aer attack.

"Ready..." Rita pressed her back up against mine. I was already starting to spin and had to force myself to go through the move slower so as not to tangle us both up.

"Woah, what are you-?"

"SPLASH!"

I wasn't quite sure how she pulled it off, but the aer from her attack got caught up in and carried along by the aer pouring out of my daggers, causing a miniature hurricane to form around us. We were like the eye of the storm with two watery arms arcing outwards. The bats were caught by the wave and washed to the far side of the cave, catching some of the others that had been swarming our friends on the way.

"Well...that was interesting." I quirked an eyebrow at Rita, "I never knew you could do that."

"Well, now we know."

"...Soo, you didn't know either..."

"I'd been meaning to experiment with it," she said dismissively. "Now we've gotta deal with the rest of them." Returning her book to its harness hanging from her lower back, she whipped her scroll out and charged up a glowing red formula.

_I suppose I should be glad she decided to experiment with water and not fire..._ A few bats tried to attack her from behind but I caught them with my Gemini in time. Rita, meanwhile, ignored the little party behind her in favor of launching barrage after barrage of fireballs. Seemed she was going with quantity over quality, since a big spell would just be a waste of magic if it couldn't hit the darting bats.

"Hey!" Rita and I looked over at Yuri's call. "Everyone try and take down the leader!" He got off an Azure Edge through the press of bats, the blue aer slicing through the air towards one bat that was hanging back from the interspersed fighting. That particular bat flapped its wings to fly up above the attack, but now Rita and I knew what to look for.

"...It has lightning bolt antennae..." I muttered disbelievingly.

"Who cares about that!" Rita's scroll was tracing a complex pattern through the air, "Just keep the rest of these monsters off me!"

"Aye aye, ma'am!" So I provided cover while keeping an eye on Rita to see what spell she was cooking up (in case I needed to jump quick out of the crossfire...at least it shouldn't be another hole in the ground).

"O disturbing power now unleashed, mete thy judgment upon the evil before me... Violent Pain!" It was like the shadows on the floor themselves suddenly reared up high in the air before arcing downward and stabbed through the lightning antennae bat. The magical attack damaged it and brought it back down to our level.

"Marche Waltz!" Estelle's slender blade dipped and cut gracefully, slicing membrane wings to ribbons.

"Ah!" A bat that had managed to get past my guard and latch onto my arm. Its sharp teeth sank into my flesh, and I ended up cutting myself a bit when I stabbed the annoying bugger with a dagger. "Flippin' Dracula wannabe..."

"Come on, wind, knock 'em around," I heard Raven chanting. Funny, he sounded kinda distorted. As I turned to give my attention back to the leader bat, I was struck with a sudden surge of vertigo.

"Uhn," I groaned a bit and dropped to one knee before I fell over. Aware that I was open to an attack, I tried to shake it off as I looked up again. Was that one bat flapping over my head or four...?

_Eh? Now there's no bats, but two Judiths..._ I closed my eyes tightly and pressed my face into the palm of my hand.

"Are you alright?" the krytian asked with concern.

"Bloody little bastard bit me..." I grumbled. Was I just light headed from loss of blood or was the damn thing poisonous?

Hands, presumably Judith's, took hold of my bitten arm and rolled up my sleeve to expose the injury. "...I think it may have injected aer directly into your veins."

"Oh, that's just peachy."

"I suppose it's to deal with larger enemies," she mused. "Those fangs don't do much damage." I made a small noise of exasperation while bowing my head lower. Breathing deep through my open mouth seemed to help slightly... She patted my shoulder reassuringly. "Just wait it out here, we'll finish things up."

Then she was gone, I could practically sense the empty space where she'd just been. Rubbing my face with both hands, I growled in frustration. "Dammit, body, adjust or assimilate or whatever you do with aer _faster!_"

"Oh no!"

"Letha, move!"

"Oh shi-" I looked up in time to see a wave of water. Then I was rolling backwards through the water, trying not to inhale any as I figured out which way was up. Once I'd sorted myself out, I stood dripping and glaring at Rita.

"..."

"I think ya better start watchin' your back," Raven cautioned her.

She crossed her arms and looked away without remorse, "Hey, at least I finished off that whatever-pus."

"I'm so happy for you," I gritted. Was I angry? Oh, not really, not at Rita. The water at least was probably a mistake (though I still suspected the bat might have been on purpose). But it had been a crap day and fantasizing ways to get back at the mage was making me feel better.

While I was busy being a grump, Estelle had again been instinctively drawn to the wounded. A casting of Nurse and then some First Aids, and she had us all patched up and was back to concentrating on the Pseudo-French Duo.

The Leviathan's Claw girls had woken, and looking sour in the face as they'd realized that not only had we defended them but our naïve princess was using her power to heal them.

"We need no succor from our enemies..." the red head spat. Though the effect was a bit ruined by the wince at the end as she tried to stand.

Her partner also tried to stand, the two seeming to gain strength from their unified stand against us. "You're not gonna make fools of us..." green hair snarled.

"But, with those injuries...!" Estelle started to protest. But then both girls viciously threw something at the ground before them, unleashing a noxious cloud into the air.

_Oh, Gawd it's like bad eggs, skunk, and burnt hair!_

"Man this stinks..." Yuri hissed, waving a hand to try and disperse the foul air. "Where'd this smoke come from...?"

"The wonders of stink and smoke bombs..." Holding my hand before my nose and breathing through my mouth, I somewhat missed my loose sleeved black shirt. The fitted sleeves of my turtleneck couldn't be used to mask my face at all.

"They're throwin' our canine friend here off the scent..." Raven pointed out, drawing our attention to Repede. The poor dog was whimpering, pawing frantically at his own nose and rubbing it against the dirt.

The girls were able to make a clean get away, because there was _no_ way we were going to walk through that cloud and come out on the other side smelling like _that_. We had to wait for it to dissipate into the air. And once it had...

"Aah... Wh-what is with this heat...?" Rita groaned miserably as we entered the exiting tunnel. It was long but we could see sunlight at the other end. But it was accompanied by a nearly palpable wall of, as Rita pointed out, HEAT. I found myself thankful that my hair and clothes were drenched.

"Those are the Sands of Kogorh..." Judith informed us. It was her turn to be the travel info brochure.

Raven's eyes widened in amazement even as he wiped at his forehead with a sleeve, "Whoa... We made it all the way there?"

"The Sands of Kogorh. Phaeroh's here," Yuri reminded us in a decisive tone.

_Yes... We're on to the next big step of the journey._ To me the following debate of the merits of continuing versus turning around, with heavy input from Rita about how insane we all were for considering it, it was all meaningless. Even without the discussion I felt we all knew that we'd go. Even if _some_ of us thought they could get away with striking out on their own (_I'm looking at YOU Estelle!_).

Honestly, some people can't realize when trying to be noble and not burden others just causes them more trouble.

x x x

_**Yeager**_

_Karol: I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that Regaey was Yeager's alter ego._

_Yuri: This spells out the connection between Ruins' Gate and Leviathan's Claw pretty clearly._

_Letha: Well, that and the fact that "Regaey" is "Yeager" spelled backwards. A coincidence like that is rarely a coincidence._

_Karol: Huh? Woah, I hadn't noticed that..._

_Yuri: And Yeager must have been the boss of both guilds._

_Raven: Isn't it kinda early ta say that for sure? It is possible that the Regaey we met was just Yeager puttin' on a show. An' maybe "Yeager" is "Regaey" backwards an' the real one has nothin' to do with it. The real Regaey could be off in some ruins someplace, just diggin' away, happy as a clam._

_Yuri: We're gonna have a hell of a time if it's really that complicated._

_Raven: I dunno, maybe I'm just puzzlin' over it a little too hard._

_Yuri: We'll have to keep at it until we get to the bottom of this mess._

x x x

Our goal was the town built on an oasis Judith had told us about. Mantaic.

_They better have some freakin' showers._

Once out under the sun it hadn't taken long for my clothes and hair to dry. And then they got damp all over again with sweat, causing sand to stick uncomfortably. And sand has its way of getting everywhere. Every twenty minutes at least one of us had to stop and pull off a boot to pour the sand back out.

And of course we couldn't stop for a break. Oh no. That wouldn't do any good as we'd have to sit in the sun and let our brains bake. Instead we pressed on in the hopes of getting to Mantaic sooner.

Cactus crabs attacked us.

At first I thought I was seeing things, but it was definitely some multi-legged organism with a touch exoskeleton and bulbous cactus growing on its back menacing us with its pincers. Well, it didn't exactly look like a cactus...I could also describe it as a watermelon with yellow spines...but who's ever heard of watermelon in a desert?

"Pierce, pierce, pieeerce!" I was, in fact, using Pierce over and over again to repeatedly stab through the shells and tough plant-like growths. "Dammit, you guys are holding us uuuup!" _And crap, now there's sand in my mouth..._

Then something pierced me, the sudden agony in my shoulder making my vision flare white and then cloud with pained tears. I blinked rapidly to try and clear my sight while craning my neck around to see. There was a yellow spine going through my upper left arm. "Aw, effff," I grabbed at the spine, nearly swooning at the fresh wave of pain.

Other hands appeared, white gloved ones taking my hand away and holding my arm in place while larger sun browned ones grabbed the spine and yanked. I bit my lip to keep from outright screaming, but couldn't hold back a pained gasp and whimper.

"First Aid!" Estelle was quick to relieve my suffering. She even cast it again, just because. Bless that girl for her selflessness... Once my concentration was no longer entirely focused on my pain, I was able to register that Judith was the one who'd kept me in place and Raven was holding a familiar yellow spine.

"I don't get it," Rita was saying. "This is the kind of scenario that would activate her weird ability. But it didn't go through her." That got her some looks. "You know what I mean!"

"I wonder..." I tried to think back to all the other cases. "On the Atherum...in the coliseum..."

"Wait, it happened then?" Rita was glaring at me, "When? How?"

"When the monsters got loose. One was biting my leg. And then it...wasn't. The look on its face was kinda funny actually," I had to add. "And...earlier...when Karol and I were wandering in the Weasand..."

Karol frowned, "I don't remember that."

"It was before you woke up. Got in a couple of fights with Eggbears..." I tried to cover for how shaky the memory of Jasper's death made me by studying the new holes in my sleeve. Probably needed patches to fix.

"Hmm," Rita crossed her arms, lost in thought. "Do those cases have anything in common?"

I frowned, forcing myself to consider each time. "Well...they weren't all life threatening since I could live with a wounded leg. But I could be either killed or crippled without immediate medical attention..." I rubbed at my arm. That could probably count as crippling, so there must be more...oh! "It never happens when I can't see the attack coming. Either I can tell I'll be hit and can't dodge, or be in the middle of the attack that's about to get worse. This bastard of a crustacean," I threw a venomous look at the dead cacti crab with Judith's halberd still sticking out of it, "got me from behind."

"Okay...so, we can probably conclude that you need to be aware of the attack and regard it as a threat," Rita summarized. "And maybe there's more to it besides that... Finally, we're starting to understand it!" _Oh no, there's that gleam in her eye again_.

While Rita withdrew into her own little world to mumble to herself and Estelle had me test my arm to make sure it was healed correctly, Yuri addressed both Karol and me. "That reminds me, what happened to you guys back there?"

Karol and I took it in turns to outline our solo trek through the Weasand, with me leaving out the part about Jasper and letting them believe Karol and I had been alone when I woke up. Duke's appearance was something of a shock to them, and the fact that he'd known an aer krene was there led into the others telling us about how it had overflown when Yeager had run passed.

Once we were all on the same page (or on the pages we were respectively supposed to be on), Karol also took it upon himself to try and bring Estelle and Rita up to speed with _Firefly_. By then the heat and all the talking had taken his energy from him, so his incoherent explanation actually, and this should not have been possible, made less sense than usual. I had to translate most of it for the others.

"Huh," Yuri put out once I got to the point about Simon's sacrifices for the sake of his sister. "For a rich snob, he's got some guts."

"Hey," I protested, "Simon isn't a snob! ...Okay, maybe he is a bit, but he gets better! And damn, but you don't want to get him angry!" I couldn't help grinning as I remembered some instances where mild doctor Simon demonstrated how awesome he could be. "You should never give your doctor a reason not to like you."

x x x

_**Hair Care**_

_Judith: …_

_Letha: Uh, Judith? Why are you looking at me like that?_

_Judith: I was just thinking, your hairstyle is rather unique._

_Letha: My braid, you mean?_

_Judith: Yes, I was wondering if there's a particular reason you wear it like that._

_Letha: Ah, not really. I just really needed to cut my hair about a year ago, but felt really bad since it took so long to grow. So I left just the braid._

_Judith: Are you trying to grow it back, then?_

_Letha: Yup. Though with all the fights we get into, it's gonna get damaged and need to be cut again... Hey, how do you take care of yours?_

_Judith: Hmm? I usually keep it tied up, and wash it everyday._

_Letha: Mine never wants to stay tied back though..._

_Judith: Why don't you ask Yuri? His hair is always down but it looks very healthy._

_Letha: …!_

_*Letha starts shaking, as if laughing*_

_Judith: Is something wrong?_

_Letha: N-no! Just...just can't picture...!_

x x x

"Seems like a pretty sleepy town," our swordsman observed as we looked around the main street of Mantaic. And indeed, if not for the occasional knight here and there, and the rare open shop with a vendor behind the counter, I would swear it was a ghost town.

Even though I knew the reason, I supplied, "Well, maybe they actually are sleeping? They could just stay inside during the hottest hours of the day."

"Yeah, I can't imagine anyone wanting to go anywhere in this heat..." Rita agreed, her voice tired.

"There are knights even here, though," Karol eyed them with concern. Though none of them had moved, there was the distinct impression that we were being watched.

"I don't recall seeing such intimidating people here the last time I came." Everyone stiffened a bit as Judith's words sank in and confirmed that Something Was Not Right.

The silence was stretching out a tad too long, and the longer we just stood in the street the more suspicious we looked. Yuri must have realized this, as he very naturally picked up the conversation again. "All right, shall we each go our own way for now?"

Rita uncrossed her arms and let them fall limply by her sides. "I'm for that... Before I do anything, I want to give these feet a rest..."

"And I really need to go find a new weapon." Karol hurriedly looked over at me, "Not that your sword isn't a nice weapon, you know, but I, uh..."

"You're not keeping Oberon one way or another," I said. "Since you're going to be doing some shopping anyway, why don't you restock on everything we left back at Nordopolica?"

"Wh-what? Why me?"

"Okay then, sounds like a plan," Yuri agreed casually, though a smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth. "Let's meet up in front of the inn after sunset." And after a quick round of nodding and agreement, everyone split up to go different ways. Karol was left spluttering alone.

"Guys!"

I stopped at his wail and smiled over my shoulder at him. "Yes, boss?"

"How can you call me boss after dumping the work on me?" he stamped his foot.

"Hmm, maybe because I was kidding?" Laughing, I went back and ruffled his hair. "You really make it too easy. But I don't have any plans, so I'll help you."

"O-oh. Thanks!"

Well, that's what I said. And I really had meant to help. But...

"We don't have enough gald..." Karol slumped as we finished counting the money we'd pooled together. Even after tracking down the other members of the group to get them to pitch in we still came up short. Maybe we could have covered the essentials if that was all we needed, but it was pretty important that Karol got a replacement weapon. And the price tag on that axe was a hefty sum.

"What can we do? I don't think we have anything we can sell..." Well, my mp3 player could probably sell for quite a bit if I found someone interested, and even the dead cell phone might be worth something as a curiosity piece, but that plan was my very very last resort...

"...Maybe you could get a job showing off clothes again?" Karol suggested.

"No," I said flatly. "Besides, I don't think these shops are getting enough business to need to hire right now."

"That's true..."

The two of us scowled while wracking our brains for get-rich-quick schemes.

"What if you-"

"No."

"But you haven't even heard my idea yet!"

"I have a feeling the answer is 'no' anyway."

"Aww, c'mon!"

I leaned back so that my head rested against the wooden stand we'd been sitting in front of. The owner seemed a bit jumpy about us just sitting there, where the knights could see us all. I didn't see it as a big deal. As long as we didn't strike up a conversation with him outside of business, the knights shouldn't care.

Though it would be nice if he could suggest a way for us to earn money, since it wasn't like a bag of gald would just go...walking...by...

Karol looked up in surprise when I jumped to my feet. "Letha?"

"Come on, Ace! I need you and your adorable kicked puppy look!" I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him along as I jogged around the corner and across the street. Fortunately my target hadn't been walking very fast, even if he'd been too preoccupied to notice us. So the poor guy did a double take when I ran up going, "Chaaase!" with a huge grin.

He didn't have that long brown coat I privately considered his most identifiable feature (in a crowd at least). Instead he was just wearing a sleeveless black shirt and had rolled up the bottoms of his dust caked pants. He looked pretty exhausted but still managed a smile when he saw Karol and me catching up. His smile faltered, though, so I guess something in my expression warned him. No matter.

x x x

"This is robbery, I hope you realize that."

"Of course it isn't. We promised to pay you back and we will."

"Our guild's honor is on the line if we don't!"

"Isn't your guild's honor already pretty questionable if you had to shake down a friend for cash?"

"But we didn't! You loaned it to us as a favor out of the goodness of your heart!"

Chase sighed, because it was already too late and he knew it was a losing argument. The new axe Karol was admiring was proof of that. And really, he could have turned us down. We all just knew he was too soft to do that. He was even helping us carry the bags of supplies we bought back to the inn.

"Hey, at least we only asked you to pay for the weapon. We covered everything else we need on our own." Because I'm not _that_ connivingly manipulative, and I'd definitely pay him back at the first opportunity. And count myself as owing him a favor.

"But that was pretty amazing, how you haggled down the price by a thousand gald," Karol said with a mixture of awe and respect.

Chase waved it off, "Aw, no big deal. I'm pretty used to doing that." The smile that had appeared on his face betrayed him though. "My boss isn't very good with money."

"Come to think of it," I realized, "You've never said what your job is."

"You're a member of a guild, right?" Karol guessed.

"Ah, actually I'm...what is that?" Chase pointed out something sitting at the base of a pair of palmtrees where one of the knights was stationed. It appeared to be a potted cactus with a chef's hat...

"Hey Letha, do you think...?"

"I think you may be right, Ace." I looked sidelong at Chase. "Say, have you met the Wonder Chef before?"

"Yeah, a few times..." By then we'd drawn even with the cactus. Putting my sack of ingredients down, I exchanged one more look with the guys before reaching out and picking up the pot. It turned to smoke in my hands and once it cleared the Wonder Chef was standing in front of me. He grabbed my hands in both of his and began shaking them enthusiastically.

I can't say for sure, but I think the knight standing a few feet away groaned and said, "Oh no, not again..."

"Bravo! Magnificent! To have students with such keen eyes!" He dropped my hands and threw his arm across his eyes, as if overdramatically wiping the tears from his eyes. "A chef couldn't be prouder!"

"Umm," I started, unsure of what to say. Then the Wonder Chef grabbed me by the hand again and dragged me towards the nearest house. It was so sudden Chase and Karol were nearly left behind, but when I looked back to make sure we hadn't lost them I noticed the knight was also following.

Wonder Chef just threw open the door of the house he'd brought me to and marched in like he owned the place. The family inside looked startled for a moment until all their eyes fixed on his chef's hat and oversized gold saucepan.

"Kitchen's over there," the mother pointed out a door. She and her husband nodded to the others as they came in, seeming not at all surprised that one of the knights was tagging along. Then I was dragged through the kitchen door.

"The lesson for today is CURRY!" Wonder Chef announced, finally dropping my hand again (which I started to rub the feeling back into) and bustling around the kitchen grabbing pots and knives and food from various cupboards and drawers. Then looking up he saw Chase and Karol in the doorway, hesitating to come in. "Come come, I have time to teach all of you!"

The guys came in, looking as awkward as I felt to be intruding in a stranger's kitchen. The knight came in after them, which the Wonder Chef noticed. "Ah, you again! Will you observe this time as well, or participate?"

"Taking this lesson three times was enough already," the knight grumbled, "and seeing it six times is even worse."

"One can never experience a lesson in the culinary arts too many times!" Wonder Chef scoffed. The knight fingered the hilt of his sword, eying the chef warily. "But with so many students, we really can't allow the kitchen to become to crowded." The knight let go of the hilt with a relieved sigh.

"Now!" Wonder Chef clapped his hands while beaming at the rest of us. "First thing's first! Everyone must wash up! Cleanliness is close to godliness and all!"

x x x

The sun was slipping down beneath the horizon when the Wonder Chef finally let us go. We returned to the inn carrying pots of curry, which the house owners assured us could be returned by the inn employees later. It seems neighbors of the Wonder Chef get awfully used to his antics...

"Hey, somethin' sure smells good!" Raven sniffed the air as we approached.

"Dinner," I said, raising the pot in my hands to show off to the group waiting outside the inn. "Compliments of the Wonder Chef." Karol was carrying the other pot, and Chase had been given all the other bags from shopping.

"Ooh, curry!" Raven exclaimed, lifting the lid from the pot in my hands. I took the opportunity to push the pot into his hands and free up my own. "Hey!" Blithely ignoring his protest, I took Karol's pot of curry. Why? Because.

"Karol," Estelle said with a decisive tone, "this is for you." She held out something in one hand, which Karol accepted with both hands held palms up. See? That's why.

"Huh? What's going on, Estelle...?" Karol asked in confusion, looking at the delicate and valuable looking necklace in his cupped hands. "What's this?"

"This is payment for your services. I'm sure you'll be able to sell it for quite a sum." Estelle bowed to the group as a whole, "I want to thank you all for everything you've done."

The Ace looked up at her, brows furrowed in confusion. "Huh? What do you mean? You haven't found what you're looking for yet..."

The princess lowered her head a bit, not able to look any of us in the eyes. "...I'm afraid I must take my leave from you here."

"'Take your leave'...?" Rita repeated in bewilderment. "What are you going to do?" Chase, forgotten at the back of the group, shifted a bit uncomfortably in place. He looked like he wished someone would take our bags from him so he could excuse himself.

Yuri frowned. "You're not thinking of going alone, are you...?"

Estelle looked up again, looking directly at Yuri and adopting a businesslike demeanor, a sort of level tone and expression I imagined she'd learned from growing up among nobility. "My desire to meet Phaeroh is a personal one."

"Are you crazy?" Karol's voice cracked slightly, "That's way too dangerous!"

"Which is why I must go alone. I won't have the rest of you caught up any further in my own selfish quest."

"No no no," I shook my head at her. "Look, this little quest was a personal matter back when we first took the job to escort you. We knew that and we took it willingly. Nothing's changed since then." Estelle's expression wavered a bit, but then firmed again in the defiant set of her jaw.

"Do justice, and punish the unjust." Everyone looked at Yuri. Estelle's eyes widened slightly at the familiar words.

"Huh...? Oh, right. That's one of the laws of our guild," Karol recalled.

Judith closed her eyes and said softly, "There's no justice in letting Estelle march into the heart of the desert all by herself."

"I don't think I have it in me to break our laws," the swordsman said humbly but with a smile. "How about you guys, Karol? Letha?"

"Right!" Karol grinned at the argument.

"I'd never dream of breaking our laws."

"It seems those are the rules," Judith said to Estelle, who had forgot herself to the point that her mouth was hanging open ever so slightly.

"...I'm terribly flattered, really, but I'm afraid I can't let you..."

"Estelle, wait!" Rita rounded on us all. "Have you all lost your marbles? We're talking about a force of nature here!"

Yuri raised a hand, borrowing Rita's argument for his own, "Which is why we're all going together."

Karol fidgeted a bit, "I'll admit I'm a little scared, but I can't just let Estelle go off like that."

Exasperated, Rita spun and pointed at Raven. "You! You talk some sense into them." He looked away a bit.

"If I start whining now, I'll have to go all the way back ta Nordopolica by myself, right? That's no fun."

"Ooh!" the mage growled. "There's no reasoning with any of you." Her eyes lighted on Chase, who looked like he _really_ wished he was elsewhere. "Don't _you_ have anything to say?"

"Uh, I don't really know what's up," he answered a bit nervously, "but...the more the merrier?" He gave a shaky laugh, that died quickly under her glare. I realized about then that I didn't see Judith with us anymore.

"Are you sure you're dead set on this?" Rita asked the princess one more time. Chase gave a slight exhalation of relief when the mage's attention left him.

"Yes. I've thought a lot about this." Estelle closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at each of us in turn. "You all have something that's important to you, a goal you give everything to achieve." When her eyes rested on me for a moment, I unconsciously looked down at my left hand. It was gripping the pot of curry a bit more tightly than necessary, and I could imagine the shape of the tattoo hidden under my glove.

"I realized that I didn't have anything like that for myself..." Looking back up at the princess, she had tilted her head back and was looking at the blue sky far above our heads. "And I knew I had to find a purpose of my own, something I can dedicate myself to.

"I made the decision to begin this journey, and I have to finish what I've started. This..." she lowered her gaze down to us again, "this is something I have to do for myself."

I stared at her. Her expression and posture were elegant and straight, the perfect little princess. The ideal 'soft' image was a little spoiled by the stubborn will showing through small signs. But her hands, folded like they often were when she was standing at ease or giving a speech about her intentions, they somehow gave me the impression of a child hugging herself because no one else was there to hold her.

Rita was also giving Estelle a hard, searching look. Finally she sighed in defeat. "...Okay okay, you win. So we'll be aiming for the desert's center."

"Huh...?" Estelle's strong image was shattered at the unexpected words.

"Hey, I tried talking sense into you idiots."

"Rita..."

"There's actually no real need for you to come, Rita." The mage bristled and glared at Yuri. "You've got your aer krene research to worry about, don't you?" he reminded her reasonably. In effect, very indirectly asking if being sure Estelle was safe took priority over her research.

"There's no telling what you idiots will get into if I don't keep an eye on you. The aer krene isn't going anywhere," she looked in the rough direction of the Weasand, "I'll go check up on it later." _Ritaaa, you're just concerned about us!_

"But!" she asserted, "We're not leaving until we've taken care of all our preparations."

"Well, Karol and I have already started that," I told her, nodding at the bags still in Chase's arms (he was looking very longingly at the inn door).

"I'm sorry to be such an inconvenience to you all..." Estelle murmured apologetically.

Yuri shook his head a bit at her attitude as he rested a hand on his hip, "I think we had a pretty good idea things would turn out like this from the start." Estelle smiled at him gratefully.

"Huh...?" Karol looked around curiously, finally realizing something. "Where's Judith?"

As if she'd heard her name, the krytian pushed open the inn door and came back out. She looked around at us once and tilted her head. "Everything settled?" she asked, as if the outcome had been a foregone conclusion. Which, privately, I agreed it was. And not just because I knew the game plot.

"Yeah," Rita said shortly, probably already regretting having caved in.

Judith looked at Estelle, "Well, what did you decide?" Her eyes were intent, fixed on the princess' face, and it occurred to me that she might be testing the younger girl's resolution. She was, after all, the one who most often pointed out to Estelle when she was straying from her goal.

Estelle nodded, meeting Judith's eyes, "We're going to the center of the desert."

The krytian's wine red eyes half closed, and a smile bloomed on her face. "I had a feeling, so I've made some arrangements. The innkeeper has agreed to help us."

Raven stretched a bit (having freed his hands by leaving the curry pot I'd given him on the door step) then folded his arms behind his head. "We'll wanna be good and rested before we leave this town behind, that's for sure."

"You're always thinking about your next nap," Rita said scornfully, walking up to the archer and giving him a sharp look, "aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I sleep so much better if I have a little company," he grinned at her. His grin turned into clenched teeth as she stamped her foot on his and ground down hard. No one paid this exchange any mind as we finally filed in through the inn's door, Rita with her nose in the air to show how little his attitude impressed her. He just groaned a bit, picking up the curry pot again before he limped back inside.

I paused before going in, looking back at Judith. She was staring out towards the depths of the desert, her expression a little wistful. Quickly I turned to the door, as if I could give her some measure of privacy despite knowing her biggest secrets.

x x x

Hrrm, was there anything I wanted to talk about down here...

Ah, "Hair Care". Judith broke Letha. And she totally did it on purpose. It can be left up to individual opinion if Judith really did only want to have a girly chat about hair, or if she had other reasons (hinted at in the drabbles) for being interested in Letha.

Poor Chase, as I seem to say a lot.

Aaand, hope the piece explaining some rules about the permeability made sense.


	40. Chapter 40: Rita Sensei

__So now Chase has a formspring (link in profile). Because I apparently don't make him suffer enough. And I really want to hear Yuri sing. Because I found youtube videos of his Japanese seiyuu singing, and yeah. (Disconnected ideas...)

Contest entry number six! "Late Night Talks" by Dreamer's Samhain! Chase _always_ gets in trouble when Letha's involved. Not that that's a bad thing...

Today is May 27, we'll say the contest ends midnight May 31. Though if you have an entry you're working on but aren't sure you'll have finished by then, let me know and I'll happily make an extension. Otherwise, the poll for voting on the entries will go up within a few days. A reminder to check my profile for info!

Alternate chapter title: In Which the Author Demonstrates Her Ability to BS. Three guesses what part that's referring to, and the first two don't count... Much of the time working on this chapter was me staaaring at it, wondering if it only made sense in my head.

Nilious:

The Atherum chapters were boring? Well, I've heard some people say they found that part of the game boring, but I personally had fun with those chapters. Because of Nevi and making Letha miserable, so I'm biased. And there's still a bit more to get into about Letha's new ability, hopefully further revelations will be interesting (and still make sense...).

Angelic:

Yes, again. And the "up" arrow key came off during this chapter, but that went back on. Now I'm suspecting the "B" key wants to come off... Surprised I haven't actually found raving reviews from you in the entries with the YurixLetha pairing, or that there isn't an entry I can trace back to you (I have my ways).

And and and! I'd totally provide a sample of Letha's voice, except I don't have one or the tech savvyness to record one! Sad Sylph!

The Smurfette Principle:

Fanfiction and Gmail are conspiring so I can't send you a review reply, I dunno why. Letha is gloating about making people cry-

Letha: No, _you _are!

Hush! And she totally appreciates the attempts to hug her. And I'd absolutely love if someone actually did cover the song, but no biggie if you say you can't. Instead we'll all hope that a miracle falls into my lap and I figure out a way to do it myself. And get over selfconsciousness/stage fright to actually put it up for you guys.

x x x

Chapter 40: Rita Sensei

x x x

Yuri and Judith talked with the innkeeper (it was called Anteres Inn, by the way, if that actually matters) while most of the others eyed the knight standing right in front of the front desk. Chase, presumably already having room arrangements of his own, moved straight on to the common room area so he could leave our bags on the table.

"What's he doing here, anyway?" Rita asked, jerking her head a bit to indicate Chase.

"Don't mind me," he simply said, "I'm just the innocent victim of a robbery."

Estelle's hands flew to cover her mouth, "You were robbed? Even with all these Knights around?" The inn keeper looked nervously at the knight standing _just right there_, as if wondering who would be crazy enough to cause trouble under such conditions.

"Oh, they jumped me in an alley," Chase told her conversationally. "A pair of hulking brutes," he stretched his hand up in an indication of height, "with these really nasty looking clubs." And the knight was very unreassuring in his lack of concern about this story.

"Oh my," the princess breathed.

"How frightening that must have been for you," Judith's words were directed at Chase, but her eyes were on Karol's nervous shuffling and probably my rolling eyes.

"Yeah, absolutely terrifying. I'm lucky I got out of there alive." By that point Yuri, Rita, and Raven were also giving the Ace and me these Looks. _What must they think really happened...?_

My face an exemplary image of innocence, I said with utmost concern, "You should be careful! What if you run into them again next time you go out?"

"That's right!" Estelle gasped, still not catching on. "You could get seriously hurt if it happens again!"

"You know what _I_ heard," I continued, warming up to my little game, "I heard that if you wear your clothes inside out and backwards, it'll scare bandits away."

All eyes on me were filled with incredulous disbelief. Except for two pairs that sparkled bright with wonder.

"I've never heard of that before!" That was Estelle.

"Really? That's amazing!" And that was Karol.

I raised a finger like I was lecturing. "Of course! This was an ancient and rarely used charm for travelers. But it is noted for being highly effective and sending your would be assaulters fleeing in terror with a flatulence-like gust of wind."

There was a brief moment of perfect silence followed by a, "Wait, what?" from Yuri. I just grinned at them all, no longer trying to hold back my glee.

"Did yer parents drop ya on your head or somethin'?" Raven asked.

"No, but I tended to fall down stairs and bump my head on low shelves a lot," I replied in all seriousness.

Rita sighed, shaking her head, "And so _much_ is explained."

"I suppose it is," I agreed amiably. Her look of disgust made me smile.

After the innkeeper timidly warned us about the dangers of the desert, shooting furtive glances at the Looming Knight of Observation, he promised the supplies we needed would be ready before we left. Which, in the game, was only a selection of canteens. In real life I was sure there'd be more that we'd need.

But first: dinner. A grand affair of curry and...curry! For dessert, more curry!

Hey, at least it wasn't fish.

It certainly wasn't bad, the others seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit (especially Karol and Chase). I just have a low tolerance for even mild levels of spice in my food. I drank a lot of water with my curry.

"What are you guys going into the desert for, anyway?" Chase asked at one point. "I got that you're looking for some guy called Phaeroh, but what for?" There was a moment of awkward silence while it slowly dawned on everyone that Chase didn't know that Phaeroh was a monster (coughEntelexeiacoughcough).

Yuri took the lead on this. "Estelle was attacked by a giant monster back in Dahngrest. We've heard that Phaeroh might be able to tell us why. And there's also rumors that that monster appears in Kogorh." _Ooh, nicely done_.

"Woah, a monster came all the way from Kogorh to Dahngrest to attack you? That's pretty impressive." _And a pretty good indication that Phaeroh is no ordinary monster_.

Estelle's eyes lowered, as did her dainty spoonful of curry, "Oh, yes..."

"Well what about you?" Raven questioned in turn. "Yer pretty far from where we last saw ya."

"Ah, umm..."

"Yeah!" Karol chimed in, "You were going to tell us what your job is earlier!"

"Ehh, it's nothing all that interesting," he laughed a bit awkwardly, spoon pushing the curry in his plate around instead of properly eating it. "My boss just sends me out to do the work he doesn't feel like doing himself. Deliveries, errands, going to meetings in his place..." Finally ate another spoonful, then swallowed and waved the spoon at us. "A real nuisance is what he is!"

"Annnd he sent you out to Mantaic because...?" Yuri raised an eyebrow.

"Meeting this time. Have some paperwork that needs to be signed."

Rita had to comment on that, "That doesn't suit you at all." Privately I had to agree, and realized it wasn't quite so private as I was nodding slightly.

"Yeah, I've been told that," he said without taking any offense. "Some people have even assumed I was a member of the Hunting Blades."

"_That_ I can see," the mage affirmed, not sounding all that complimentary about it.

"Ah yeah," Chase coughed a bit, "And what have you guys been up to? Besides chasing down this Phaeroh."

"Well," I supply, "we were in Nordopolica not that long ago."

Judith picked up the conversation from there, "Yes, the tournament was very interesting to see. Yuri and Letha even participated."

"Oh, yes! They were very impressive!" Estelle finally perked up again. "And Letha's uncle fought too!" There was a slight metallic squeal as Yuri's spoon scraped across the bottom of his plate. This, of course, drew all of our attention to him.

Chase spun his spoon idly between his thumb and forefinger. "Something wrong?"

"Nah, nothing," Yuri said. "Just remembered something Ludwig and I talked about." _That's right, during that fight... And whatever it was upset Yuri_.

"What about?" Chase pressed further.

"No big deal, although..." Yuri frowned a bit and looked over at me. "He said something strange. Something about how I wasn't really the winner."

Karol sat up a bit straighter, "What? But you were winning, and he gave up!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought. And he just said to ask Letha." And then everyone was looking at me expectantly.

"I, uh, well..." I leaned back in my seat and tried to recall the details of both coliseum fights. And then even further back to the days learning to fight behind Ludwig's cabin. And the day I left...

_Ludwig was unlocking a drawer in the desk by the window, but I couldn't see what he took out of it at first. When he turned he held it up for me to see and I sucked in a surprised breath._

_"Is that-?" It was beautiful hair clip, carved like a pair of spread wings, with a shining red jewel set in the center._

_"Yes, a bodhi blastia." He smiled fondly at it. "Actually, I haven't needed to use one for a long time. The monsters here don't pose much danger to me anymore. But this one belonged to Sophia." He held it out to me, "I believe she would have liked you to have it."_

I opened my eyes, which apparently had drifted closed with thought. "Ludwig didn't have a bodhi blastia." I looked around the table and shrugged a bit. "I'm not sure if he still even has his anymore, but I know he had one before and that he wasn't using it in Nordopolica."

"Now that you mention it," Judith contemplated, "he didn't use any artes against either of you."

There was a moment of silence all around as everyone else replayed the fights in their own memories. "Do you mean," Estelle said slowly, "he went easy on you...? On both of you?" Yuri's face took on a slightly sour look as I nodded.

Chase was frowning as well, tapping his spoon on the edge of his plate. "Dad always told me that Ludwig was one of the best in the guild. You know, before he left. But I'd have thought he'd, like, get a bit rusty with age."

I could only shrug, "Maybe he has. But he's also been living al-aah, outside any city barriers the whole time protecting our home himself. Not as easy to fall out of practice that way."

Both Yuri and Chase went, "Hmm." Which was weird, because if they didn't have different voices I would have thought it was just one person.

After that the conversation returned to the safer small talk. For the most part. Estelle asked me what the phrases of 'ancient language' I'd been using in the Weasand meant. I got out of that fairly easily by saying that I was only parroting stuff I'd heard before and knew was supposed to be insulting. When asked where I'd heard it from, I shrugged and blamed a combination of Sophia and lack of discretion around an impressionable young girl. _Sorry, Sophia! Ludwig!_ That was one cover up lie I don't think they'd appreciate.

x x x

Showers are heavenly. Divine. Blessed. Inventions of inspired genius.

I had to keep mine brief, as wasting water in a desert is incredibly short sighted, and the inn actually had some kind of timer set up that made them shut off automatically. Been a while since I'd seen something like that. But it was enough to put me in a state of bliss.

That is, I was happy until Rita caught me. I had been tying my damp hair back into a ponytail on my way back to the rooms. She was sitting by the door to the room Judith and I were sharing, reading from her book (the same one she'd been smacking bats with), and the moment the mage saw me she sprang to her feet. Catching hold of my hand, "Come on, we need more room," she yanked me along behind her. I nearly tripped over our feet as she dragged me out the inn's door.

"Rita? Rita!" At least after the initial surprise I was able to keep up with her easily. "Just what is this about?" She was leading me through the dark streets of Mantaic, where thanks to the knight enforced curfew there were very few lanterns. Rita broke stride for a short moment to reach out and grab one of the lanterns lit with an actual flame. Most light, however, came from the town's barrier and the still mostly full moon. The familiar landmarks I recognized (thanks to the shopping trip with Karol) gave me a rough bearing. It seemed Rita was aiming for the lake the town had been built next to.

Once we'd reached the shoreline she finally let me go. I immediately ground to a halt and folded my arms. "So?" I asked, making sure to nonverbally convey how much I didn't appreciate her methods for getting my attention. "What is this about?"

"Magic tests, of course" she replied totally unfazed, surveying the stretch of beach we were on critically. "Hmm, we have some good elements to work with here... Okay, I can work with this." Her attention snapped back to me. "First, we need to see how good you are at sensing the flow of aer." 'If you're any good at all,' could have been tacked on to the end there. Being from Earth, it wouldn't be surprising if I reaaally sucked.

Despite knowing just how much it would try her (very limited) patience, I asked, "How do you mean?"

"I mean," she said in an overly patiently tone (which made me think she was trying very hard to work past that short coming for the long term goal of satisfying her own questions about my tattoo), "that everyone can sense it to at least some degree, if they try. If they have a blastia, that is." I nodded a bit slowly, as that seemed simple enough.

"Blastia react to aer, and they react differently to different kinds of aer. For example, aer with a strong fire element," she held up the lantern she'd 'borrowed', "causes the blastia to react with fire based formulas. Like this." A familiar red formula circle flared into life under her feet, and the flame inside the lantern nearly tripled in size, sparks and embers thrown off and spiraling out into the dark night sky. I felt tempted to applaud.

"See? With the blastia and formula, I could add more aer to the fire and make it even stronger. If I redirect the aer I can even control the fire any way I want." To prove this the formula lit up the ground again, and the flame arced out from the lantern to loop through the air around us and back into the lantern. This time I did clap.

"Easy!" Rita preened a bit. Then she put the lantern back down on a nearby convenient stone. "Now what you need to do is learn how to tell the difference between different types of aer."

"Uh, how?" I asked, suddenly feeling daunted by the lessons. "I don't know where to start."

She waved a careless hand, "It's not that big a deal, it's basically the same as gathering aer for a strike arte. You just have to pay more attention to what the aer you're gathering is like."

"Oooh-kaaay..."

"Just try it," she says, accidentally letting her patience slip a bit.

Hoping that putting myself on familiar ground would be a good place to start, I drew one of my Gemini daggers (Oberon, by the way, was back in my room. But fairy inspired paranoia even has me bringing my daggers into the public shower room...) and starting the process for Pierce. Paying minimal attention to the familiar arte, I tried to concentrate on the aer that I was channeling into the metal.

It was like...like I was holding a rope that was getting pulled through my hands. If I held too tightly it would scrape and burn my palms, but if I loosened my grip it would be pulled away entirely. And I was trying to hold that rope in a way that it followed a direction I wanted, like I was coaxing it to thread itself through a hole. The mental image accompanying that assessment was of a thread being poked through the eye of a needle.

I let go, so to speak, the aer gathered forming a wavering green glow to the edge of my Gemini before dispersing naturally again. For a minute I stared at where the green wisps had faded into nothing, barely aware of Rita crossing her arms and tapping her foot a bit. I really hadn't given much thought to the aer used in my attacks before. I always just figured it moved through me, into my blades, and then back out again (leaving some behind that would accumulate and cause the occasional aer sickness attack. Happily they were rarer and less intense, as long as I avoided aer krenes and the like). I'd never actually tried to study how it worked, as long as I was sure it _would_ work.

But...what about the differences in the aer Rita mentioned? I tentatively tried to study the aer more closely, ignoring the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that disliked getting too close to something that had a tendency to cause me pain when in large doses.

It took a few tries of totally missing the point, before I was startled to realize there was a _section_ (for lack of better way to describe it) in the 'rope' of aer that felt warmer than the rest. Using the rope and thread metaphors again, I followed that strand back to its source. Which turned out to be the lantern flickering merrily away. And the aer in its immediate area felt hot and thrummed with energy.

_Well isn't that interesting._

Finally getting the idea, I managed to separate two other distinct types of aer. There was a lot of cool, silky smooth feeling 'threads' which I tracked back to the lake. There was also an abundance of gritty yet solid feeling ones, which after some confusion (there was no single direction to follow, so I got 'lost' in a sense) I figured out were earth.

Feeling mentally exhausted, I let the aer go again and sat down with my back leaning against one of the palm trees. "Phew..."

"Well?" Rita prompted.

I rubbed my face with the palm of my hand. "Yeah, I got it... I was able to figure out fire, water, and earth. The rest were kind of weird, though."

"Those would be the dark and wind elements," she told me. "It's a bit too late for much light. That's not bad for a start."

"Mmph."

Rita was relentless, "Now you have to try gathering a specific type of element, and nothing else. One or more might turn about to be easier than the rest, those would be elements you have a natural inclination for. For now it'd be a good idea to concentrate on those."

It was going to be a long night...

x x x

Rita's lessons and tests didn't finish until late. Despite my good start of identifying three different elements, I proved to be bad at picking out just one type at will. Either I'd gather all of them at once, or none at all. Add the fact that the extended practice wore at me more than it would most people, and we had to break it off earlier than Rita would have liked. At least she didn't work me til I passed out.

Not quite ready to go back inside, I sat on the water's edge while looking up into the starry sky. Rita lingered for a few minutes, before deciding to go back to the inn to make sure Estelle went to bed early so she'd be well rested. Before leaving she warned me that if I slept in too late the next morning, she would not be responsible for how unpleasant my awakening was. For the time being, I couldn't feel to concerned about that...

It was still incredibly strange to see the barrier's rings stretching above, huge and, to my mind, oppressive. They were like a constant reminder, 'you can not step beyond this point without forgoing all pretense of safety and control'.

And yet...it represented safety to these people. It let them sleep soundly in their beds the night through. It's removal would make an already uncertain life all the more unstable, when every day you'd have to wonder if your neighbors or friends or your own family might lose someone precious to a monster attack.

_But this safety is an illusion, a conceit. Overall the use of each barrier, of each blastia, is bringing calamity like the Adephagos closer._ On Earth, comparable disasters would be global warming, or nuclear warfare, or any number of other controversial Armageddons that we'd kick ourselves for in the future if they ever happened. My point being, even if the thought had occurred to people on Earth that things could go bad, we were far too fond of the common amenities to give up our lifestyle. Terca Lumireis had no clue, other than vague fairy tales they no longer understood the significance of.

_If these people knew...could they give this up? I find it doubtful...the world may be different, but human nature is human nature where ever you are._

I could almost hear Estelle's voice in my head, repeating her response to my summary of the corrupt and frightened world depicted by _Firefly. _ _'You can't know that for sure...'_

Growing uncomfortable and depressed by that train of thought, I looked away from the barrier and back at the stars. They reflected off the surface of the lake, creating an awe inspiring tableau of lights shining in the dark sky and swimming in the dark water. Chin in hand and elbow propped on one knee, I watched the play of lights in the water, letting my mind wander. And, as it often does in such cases, suggested appropriate musical accompaniment to my moods. Slow, a little sad, and finding a certain peace in the beauty of the foreign words.

"_Soshite bouya wa nemuri ni tsuite  
Ikizuku hai no naka no honoo  
Hitotsu, futatsu to_

_Ukabu fukurami itoshii yokogao  
Daichi ni taruru ikusen no  
Yume, yume_

"_Gin no hitomi no yuragu yoru ni  
Umare o chita kagayaku omae  
Ikuoku no toshitsuki ga  
Ikutsu inori o tsuchi e kaeshite mo_

"_Watashi wa inori tsuzukeru  
Dou ka kono ko ni ai o  
Tsunai da te ni kisu o"_

_Hey_, some part of my mind realized, _isn't this somewhat familiar? Sitting on a lakeside, alone, singing... And then suddenly realizing someone is behind you?_

"People seem to have a bad habit of listening in when I don't want them too," I announced aloud, not turning around.

"And here I thought I hadn't been noticed," came Judith's voice from the shadows. "What gave me away?"

"Nothing, just that someone had to be there since I'd really rather there wasn't anyone." I shrugged a bit, then leaned back until I was lying back on the sand with my head cradled . "Hullo Judith. Whatcha doing up?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing much. Just out for a walk." Sand crunched a bit, and then she was standing within my field of vision. The krytian bowed over me so that, while appearing upside down, we were looking each other in the eyes. "That was a lovely song just now," (and I flushed with embarrassment), "More of that 'ancient language'?"

I hesitated a bit before answering, "Yes." It was just so tiring living a lie...having to keep up with all the false and half false stories I kept weaving, trying not to let them trip me up in their tangled web. And, since Nordopolica, I'd been turning over and over the realization that the truth really wouldn't make a difference to these people. Well, some of the truth, but the troublesome parts could be left out so easily...and no one would know. It could be accepted that my life before and the world I came from were too vast for it to all be explained.

And of all of my new friends, Judith would be the safest to confide in. She'd listen, and whether she accepted it as truth or deluded fancy she would give her silent support. She wouldn't spread it around, no matter the circumstances, if I wanted to keep it between the two of us. Perhaps, perhaps she might not even judge me for keeping it secret. Or at least not too harshly.

"Is there something on my face? You're staring."

"You're the one standing over me," I pointed out. "I'm just stargazing."

I couldn't make out her expression, but the outline of her head tilted at a questioning angle, "But you looked like you had something to say."

Closing my eyes, I sighed internally while struggling with the upwelling urge to just talk, talk about it all until it no longer felt like a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach.

There was a clatter that reminded me if horse drawn carriages echoing down the streets, surprising me into opening my eyes again. "What was that?" Above me Judith's outline had moved, attention fixed on the direction the noise had come from.

She looked back down at me, and I could imagine the airy smile on her face as she said, "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing much. I'm going to go finish my walk, you should go back to the room before you fall asleep out here."

_Mental equation. Mysterious noise plus Judith taking a walk late at night (alone, emphasis on alone) equals Judith destroying a blastia._ "Ah." _Now, do you a) go with her or b) go back to the inn?_ "I'm not all that tired yet. Do you mind if I come with you?" _Choice A then._

There was a reluctant pause before she acceded, "I suppose there isn't any reason why not."

I rolled back onto my feet (aikido style for the win!), and took a moment to brush the sand from my clothes. "Off we go then."

I think she might have tried to slip away on her own if she ever managed to fall back to walk behind me, but as I just naturally kept a little behind and to the side of her she couldn't pull that off. So we walked down the Mantaic streets together. Upon reaching the intersection that connected with the road leading deeper into the desert, I saw for the first time the 'carriage' I'd heard.

It was, pretty much, a carriage. More for the transportation of large objects than people, so maybe calling it a covered wagon would work. Hitched up in front were those substitute things people used instead of horses (as I hadn't seen a real horse anywhere). _You can ride those things like horses, right? I wish we had some... But buying and caring for them would cost too much, and knowing us we'd end up leaving them behind in some city_.

Two knights were busying themselves checking the harnesses and making sure everything was properly secured. They were hissing at each other in low voices, too low for me to hear what exactly they were saying. Grunting, they both picked up a large object that had been lying on the ground nearby to load it into the back. While I couldn't make out exactly what it looked like, light from the barrier was caught and reflected off of a jewel-like surface.

Ahead of me Judith was intent on their work, but I was looking around. Game plot-wise, Judith should have been caught by the others in the inn and had them along with her to destroy this blastia (not that anyone besides Yuri knew she'd meant to do that). But that was obviously not the case this time, and I was wondering if we'd be alone for this.

There was a darker shape moving towards the knights from another street, the one that led to the inn. It stopped a few feet away and asked, "That looks heavy. Want some help?" A smaller ran up from behind him, but was stopped by a lifted arm.

"Ah, nice of you to offer..." one knight said distractedly as they finally pushed the mystery object into the carriage, but when he turned to look at whoever was speaking, "Huh...? It's you..." A gauntleted hand wrapped around a sword hilt, but he seemed undecided whether to fight or flee.

The smaller shape ducked under the arm and stood in front, arms crossed and confrontational. "That's a hoplon blastia, isn't it? What are you going to use it for?"

"Run!" one of the knights smacked the pseudo horse so that it was startled into a lurching run, both knights jumping on and using the carriage as their escape vehicle. Judith sprinted after them, despite the improbability of catching up on foot. I nearly slipped and fell in the sand trying to keep up with her, already knowing it wouldn't take long before I was left behind (bad for any running besides sprints, remember?).

I was not all that surprised to find myself running besides the two dark shapes that had been talking to the knights. AKA, Yuri and Rita. "What a coincidence to see you and Judy here," the swordsman said ironically.

"Just out-for a late night-walk!" I managed to get out.

How the hell would we catch them? It's one thing for a game to skip such explanation by cutting screens, but unless these guys started running in circles to give us a chance to head them off, they were home free. I had my answer when from the carriage came shouts of surprise and fear. "Monster!"

The carriage was stopped, and I almost missed the sight of a dark shape rising away from it and flying away. The others were too focused on the knights to pay it any mind. In the confusion of the 'monster's' appearance, the pseudo horse had balked and apparently the rigging of its harness had been cut, as it was running off over the sand dunes. The shock momentarily made the knights forget just what they were running from, but they were reminded by Yuri's sword and Judith's halberd held right before the visors of their helmets.

"End of the line, boys," Yuri informed them a bit smugly.

"They've caught us...!" The apparently bolder and more duty bound knight retreated back a step, raising his shield just in time to protect him from Judith's spear. "Our orders were to eliminate all witnesses, no matter what!" The other knight, probably his subordinate, whimpered a bit but obediently drew his own sword and shield at his superior's barked command.

The bold knight ran to the blastia in the carriage, apparently believing his unenthusiastic comrade would be able to buy him enough time to use it. But Yuri's sword easily dove in and back out of the wimps guard, taking his sword away and sending it flying away harmlessly.

Judith practically launched herself forward past them, low to the ground, and brought her halberd sweeping up, "Say goodbye!" There was a bright flash, as if a moonbeam as strong as if it had come from the sun shone off her blade, and the knight fell away. The armor covering his arms and hands was rent, blood dripping dark onto the sand, but it wasn't fatal. Most of the attack was suffered by the carriage and the blastia sitting inside it, though of course it looked as if that was incidental collateral damage. It sparked and the carriage caught fire, giving off plumes of dark smoke.

Rita made a strangled noise of fury and horror, running up to the smoking blastia. Afraid that she'd actually try to go into the flames to rescue the blastia, I grabbed her by the shoulders to hold her back. "Argh, this wouldn't happen if amateurs would keep their clumsy hands away from blastia!"

The wimpy knight gave a particularly wimpy cry, and ran off in the direction of Mantaic. "Damn it, you just wait..." his less easily intimidated counterpart growled, trying to hold his injured arms in close as he pushed past us and after his companion.

Rita moaned sorrowfully, no longer trying to fight free of my grip. When the smoke and flames died down enough to be safe, I let her go and followed as she dragged her feet dejectedly over to inspect the damage. "Oh no, the core is burnt to a crisp..." I patted her on the shoulder in silent sympathy (imagining to myself my reaction if it were an heirloom piece that had burned made it easy to empathize) as Yuri and Judith muttered secrets among themselves a distance off.

x x x

Chapter is short. I'm sorry. But this is where it wanted to stop, and I didn't want to force it. Next chapter I'm should start getting into some events that I've been looking forward to for awhile. Unless, you know, last minute inspirations sidetrack me again.

...The thing about inside out and backwards clothing, complete with the flatulence wind, was actually a reference to a chapter of Dennis L. McKiernan's _Once Upon a Winter's Night_. The heroine was quite nonplussed when the crazy hag's advice actually _worked_.

The song is "Tsunaide te ni KISU wo" ("Tsunai da te ni KISU o"...I can't be positive on the spelling) from D. GrayMan. Also known as the Fourteenth's Song, Musician's Score, "Please Kiss these Hands" (or various other versions of that phrase) and it seems like every translation I find of the lyrics is a bit different. And I copied and pasted the words, so yeah. I can't speak or write Japanese. Neither can Letha, she's parroting.

And, by the way, I just recently fond a song on youtube that HAS STOLEN AND BROKEN MY HEART. "Ashes of Dreams – Aratanaru" is a song from the game NieR, which apparently I have to look into because the soundtrack is awesome and beautiful. Actually, it fits the mood better for Letha's introspective moment, but neither the Japanese version or English version fit the little list of songs I have that Letha may sing at any given moment. Yes, there is a list.


	41. Chapter 41: Out of Place

Ugggh... This chapter could have been done and up a few days ago, but I've been thrown off by a weird schedule. A coworker had his vacation this week (and I hold no grudge for that) but just when I'd get the ball rolling and was making good progress on the meat of this chapter, I'd realize I'd have to stop and sleep or not be able to get up in time for work. And just now fanfiction did weird shit with all the italicized sentences and removed all the spaces. I think I fixed them all, but if you find any I missed, they weren't my fault (and I think fixing those was responsible for the ridiculously high word count this chapter, because I KNOW the word count should be less than 8000!).

Okay, griping aside, let's get on with announcements. The contest closed with seven entries and the poll is up in my profile. The poll will, at the very least, stay up until the next chapter comes out. I want to encourage as many people to vote as possible to make sure the outcome is fair. Annnd, I'm probably gonna do something special for whoever gets second place, since I'm so giddy about all the entries~ I just need to figure out what...

Angelic:

My laptop as a whole hates me. As I told a coworker, if it had a personified human form, it would be a senile old bitch who swears at me all the time. Not even kidding. And SORRY but I can't go make your shipper dreams come true and declare "Father" as a canon future. Cuz you can't have an established ending/epilogue half way through! Glad you liked the dream omake, though. ;)

And whoever said I don't know who you are? I was being polite by letting you keep your anonymous nature. But there's only one person who has subscribed to and favorited FTaBV and me as an author with "Angelic" in their username (and you review way too fast to _not_ be on one of those lists and, by the way, started reviewing when that name appeared on the Lists). But let's keep playing our little games~! Maybe we can mentally scar some readers. ;)

(*Cough* Alternative chapter title was referring to me bullshitting about how aer works. I DUNNO WHAT I'M TALKIN' 'BOUT, it just sounded good.)

The Smurfette Principle:

Seems you have your private message function turned off. You can turn it on if you want your review replies to be more private, or leave it as is and I'll keep up the author note replies. Some reviewers could tell you, though, that I can get very chatty over emails and drop little hints here and there.

The singing...we'll have to overcome the technology hurdles before worrying about the stagefright ones. Unless one of you tracks me down with a video camera or a microphone or something. (Please nobody do that. That's just plain scary.)

SomtinERanother:

As long as people are laughing and not sharpening their pitchforks. I was afraid posting this _might_ make the serious shippers (like Angelic over there) rather annoyed with me. And it warms my heart when somebody admits they like the Chase ship, since he's such a nice boy who needs more love from everybody (to make up for the wrong place, wrong time stuff I keep doing to him).

And yeees! I will be returning to Ludwig and Sophia's relationship in the omakes, just as soon as a specific event occurs to me. I mean, there are some, but those need to have some more preceding stories to build on.

x x x

Chapter 41: Out of Place

x x x

They stared at me.

I stared right back at them.

Yuri pointed out the obvious, "Letha, you're soaked."

"I know." I said this a bit smugly. I was soaked and it felt damn good.

"Was it Rita 'gain?-yeow!" Raven bit off a yelp as the mage stamped on his foot again.

"_No__,_ it wasn't me!" she hissed at him, then spun back and looked at me with calculating eyes. "Were you practicing with using aer for magic on your own?"

"Nope."

Rita's expression turned confused, "Then...?"

"I jumped in the lake. It was calling to me." Well that was a bit of an exaggeration. I had rolled up my pants and waded in until I was in up to my knees. It was blissfully cool, but the heat of the sun and the dry air were still unbearable. So then I had dunked my head in the water (and probably looked absolutely absurd to anyone passing by). I got water down my front and forearms in the process, and since then my sopping wet hair had been dripping down my back.

It had felt so good I did it again after a few minutes. So the end result was that I could only have gotten more thoroughly drenched if I'd just jumped in.

Yuri blinked slowly at me. "You...jumped in."

I smiled dreamily, thinking how it might be a good idea to go back and dunk my head a third time. "Close enough." Then I firmly reminded myself that we had other business to attend to that fine, hot desert morning. "Sooo, what are we all doing?"

"Well, we _were_ looking for you," the swordsman said in a tone that, while not actually sounding accusing, made one feel embarrassed for their actions. "It's pretty unusual for you to be up without someone having to bang down the door."

I coughed a bit and looked away, "It was, uh, getting too warm to sleep..." I'd woken up at some point to kick my blankets off and, so typical, felt too overwhelmed by the heat to fall back asleep. And that was early in the day, so I had the unhappy prospect of it getting even hotter.

And then, like the sweet song of a siren, I had happened to look out the window in the direction of the oasis lake and saw the morning sun reflecting off the water.

I swear it was calling out to me again...

"Hey!" Raven called, waggling his fingers in front of my eyes. Which had strayed back to looking longingly towards the lake. "Sorry, darlin', but if we're gonna find that Phaeroh guy anytime soon we can't go swimmin' right now." He grinned absurdly as some new thought occurred to him. "Though I'd be happy ta join ya next time for a little moonlight swim, just the two of us~" My hand flew out and whapped his head while Rita's fist hit him in the side.

"Oww!" He groaned dramatically, one arm trying to wrap around his bruised middle while the other hand rubbed at his head. The archer looked piteously at Yuri, "They're double teamin' me now! Ain't ya gonna help me?"

"Well, I dunno," Yuri considered him for a moment. "I could hit you in the head and see if that knocks some sense into you, but I think that might already be a lost cause."

"Y'all sure know how ta show your elders the respect they deserve..." Raven grumbled.

"Yeah, whatever," Yuri dismissed him, deciding the time for horseplay was over. "Anyway," he returned to talking to (berating) me, "we were about to go talk with the innkeeper about the supplies he'd promised us. Though you turned up missing, so..."

"I'm touched that you actually sent a search party." _Please __don__'__t__ tell __me __this __is __a __regression __to __that __period __where __I __wasn__'__t __allowed __to __go __out __unsupervised__..._ The four of us had been walking back towards the inn as we talked (and beat on Raven) and it was at that point we reached the main entrance.

Just inside, Estelle, Karol, and Judith were all standing by and observing as the innkeeper was absorbed in spreading things out on the tables (Repede was sleeping under one). Another employee stood meekly behind the reception desk, and she looked up sharply as we came in the door. When she relaxed upon seeing us I guessed she was apprehensive about the return of Observation Knight. _Where __is __he__, __anyway__? __Out__ on __a __smoke __break __or __something__?_ (Interesting tangent here, most people who smoke on Terca Lumireis use pipes, some of the upper class smoke cigars, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was somebody experimenting with cigarette production somewhere. But for the most part, smokers smoked pipes.)

Chase, having no free table space to use, was sitting on a stool with his legs folded up and braced on the lower rungs. A tray of food was balanced in his lap, and he was giving it more attention than breakfast normally warranted so that he wouldn't spill the juice.

"Ah, good timing," Judith said upon noticing us. She waved us over, "Who wants to try these on first?" She made a sweeping gesture that indicated a mass of cloth covering the table in front of her. Which I had to assume were desert appropriate clothes, designed to keep a person wrapped up without overheating.

A moment passed without anyone volunteering, so with a sigh I stepped forward. "So how do I put this stuff on?"

Judith had been in the desert before, so she had some prior experience with these robes. Sure, she travels in a costume that resembles a bikini with a cape-sash-thing, but her conscientious care for fashion would make her sensible enough to _cover __up_ when in a desert. (A deep tan would not suit her.) She took me back to our shared room and helped me figure out how to get the ensemble on, the end result making me look like a minor background character from _Aladdin_. Yeah, basic concept similar to any image you'd see in Earth media covering the middle east, but combined with the colorful and fanciful feel of fantasy world culture.

You know, when I was younger I fancied the exotic harem girl look portrayed in cartoons. Put me off a little when I found out what a harem was. This was more practical wear, but the dyed cloth (green and red complements on white) was nicely patterned and didn't feel as heavy as it looked. I fussed with the headdress thing for a bit, trying to get my thick hair tucked away comfortably under it, and could foresee myself throwing the thing away once I was no longer in danger of my brains boiling.

Judith paraded me back out for the others to see. And discovered that during the interim time someone (probably Yuri) had talked Karol into his own robes. They were too big on him, trailing from his arms and pooling around his feet. Karol seemed particularly sour about how Rita was snickering about him looking like a 'brat in his father's clothes', which Estelle found adorable by the way. The innkeeper was expertly rolling and tucking ends away, until it magically seemed as if the robes shrank a couple of sizes to fit the boy better.

Apparently made more willing by seeing our example, the others gave in to wearing the robes. I could only guess the thought of wearing all those layers had seemed unappealing to them in the heat. Rita was grumbling something to that effect as she and Estelle were herded away by Judith for their own fittings. Pretty sure Judith would educate the younger girls about the dangers of exposing any flesh to sun, sand, and wind.

They were back in a few minutes, each sporting new outfits that fit some of them better than others...(Well, it was rather short notice.)

"And here are some canteens," the innkeeper finished packing our desert survival gear into the extra bags (which he'd provided) and passed out new canteens to each of us.

Someone even vaguely familiar with this part of the game knows there's some weird mini game involving using cacti to stay hydrated. And I was largely expecting the dialogue about how small our canteens seemed and how we could use natural resources to refill them and stay alive to play out.

Somebody should kick me in the head for getting too comfortable with 'I know the game!' and forgetting this was real life now.

The canteens we each got were not exactly small, but rather reasonably sized. He also gave us several extra ones that he tied securely to the bags. "Drink well!" he advised us, "Many people think that once you're in the desert, you have to carefully ration your water. And while you certainly don't want to run out, the water serves you better in your stomach than in a canteen."

"But what do we do if we do run out of water?" Karol asked in concern, eying the number of canteens we had.

"We should be able to get more water from certain types of cacti growing in the desert." Judith said calmly, not overly bothered by the prospect of running out. Not that much ever bothered her outside of Entelexeia or her father's brand of blastia.

"Right," Rita agreed, inspecting her canteen critically for any flaws or leaks. "They're not the best solution, but they'll do fine if we're in danger." She then transferred her inspection to Judith while stating, "You sure know a lot."

Judith just nodded a bit and shrugged, a silent reminder that she'd 'been there, done that'.

"Thank you very much," Estelle bowed deeply to the innkeeper, folded hands nearly lost in the white sleeves of her new robes. "You've been a great help." He assured her that it was no trouble and that he wanted us to have all these. And gave us directions to the lake (you know, just in case the out-of-towners hadn't found it yet) to fill up on water. But the thought counts.

Yuri nodded as he tied his canteen to his robes' sash, "Gotcha." It was very odd not seeing him in black, but even he had to concede that wearing black in a desert was an idiotic idea, so swapped for an odd sunburst patterned orange on yellow robe. It didn't really suit him...

"By the way," Rita was asking as I withdrew myself from my moment of fashion critique, "what was with the knight who was here?"

"He was guarding me all night. I was so nervous!" Raven whined in a childish voice.

Karol shook his head a bit, shooting the older man a glance, "One lie after another..."

The innkeeper and his employee shared a look, and she went over to peer out the door as he answered. "...That was a supervisor. The knights are here to make sure that townspeople don't talk freely to visitors from outside of town."

"Why would they do something like that?" the princess asked in bewilderment.

He crossed his arms and shook his head wearily, "I don't understand the reasons, but it's on the magistrate's orders." _On__ Cumore__'__s__ orders__..._ "People other than merchants like myself aren't allowed out of their houses."

"I see..." Yuri looked over his shoulder towards the door slightly, "That's why we didn't see any townspeople outside."

Karol frowned thoughtfully, brows furrowing, "I wonder if there's a crooked magistrate here, too." He looked up to Yuri to see how the swordsman took the suggestion.

Yuri nodded slightly at Karol's look, a 'that could be it' kind of nod. Knowing myself what happened to the last rotten magistrate we encountered, my eyes darted down to the sword Yuri carried, as ever, in his left hand. Were his knuckles a little whiter from gripping it tighter? Or was I only imagining they were because I was looking for a reaction?

The innkeeper had been saying that the magistrate had only arrived recently, and how the knights were also moving into Nordopolica. "It seems they may've already gone in to arrest Belius." I blinked at the rumor, trying to remember...

Yeah, well, I knew the knights found some sort of excuse to go to Nordopolica. I hadn't remembered what the excuse was, as my mind more immediately recalled that Alexei was ultimately behind it and trying to get Belius' apatheia. _So __what __was __the __official __story __again__?_

Karol's voice shot up, "The Imperial Knights are going to arrest Belius?" The employee at the door looked back at us nervously, and seemed even more anxious about her vigil at the door.

The innkeeper looked uncomfortable, "They say that Belius had something to with engineering the Great War behind the scenes."

And that got everyone's complete attention. Even Repede's head reared up, ears pricking forward.

"Belius did that...?" Judith's voice wavered a bit.

"Well, I don't think the empire will be able to do much so long as Palestralle's there, but..." The innkeeper was interrupted by the employee's hiss and shushing motions. She quickly crossed the room, taking Chase's nearly empty tray (ignoring his protests that he wasn't done yet) just as a knight entered through the door. Ducking her head, she quickly scurried off towards what I would guess was the kitchen. The knight looked around at the crowd belligerently before striding back to his Observation Post by the front desk and returned to glowering at the room in general.

_Scary_.

"Thank you very much for your business!" the rattled innkeeper said to us a bit louder than necessary.

"Wait...but..." Karol was obviously dying to hear more about the knights in Nordopolica and Belius, but it was useless.

Recognizing that to ask anymore would possibly even get the innkeeper in trouble with the knight present, Yuri went along with the businesslike exchange. "Yeah, thanks for the help." Turning away, he grabbed one of the bags packed for us and tossed it in Raven's direction, making the archer fumble in an attempt to catch it. "Let's go fill up at the lake," he picked up the other bag and lead the way out of the inn.

"Happy hunting!" Chase waved cheerfully as the rest of us followed.

On the way to the lake, I started to get the nagging feeling that something was off... It persisted as we filled each of the canteens, the annoying feeling that you forgot something important and would kick yourself over it once you remembered.

The feeling steadily grew as we followed the road out of Mantaic, and I found myself hanging back behind the others with my feet dragging through the sand. Chewing on my lower lip, I kept looking back at the too quiet town. What was it? I knew there were issues with Cumore to be resolved, but that's for when the group returns...

"Hurry up if you don't want us to leave you behind," Rita scolded me.

I wrenched my mind back to the matter at hand, "Right, sorry!"

x x x

_**A Day in the Sun**_

_Raven: We keep goin', and goin', but all we get is more sand and more blue sky._

_Karol: You're doing better than me if you can look at the sky, Raven. The only thing I see is sand._

_Rita: ...How come an old fart like you has so much energy, anyway?_

_Yuri: Talking's only gonna wear you out. If one of us goes down, it'd be about all we could manage to get them back to safety. And I for one am in no mood to be giving out piggy-back rides._

_Letha: I can't imagine you ever being in the mood to give anybody a piggy-back ride..._

_Karol: If I collapse, Raven, you can carry me._

_Raven: Sorry, but this back's reserved for ladies only._

_Rita: I'll die before I collapse._

_Estelle: I won't let myself be a burden, either._

_Judith: The same goes for me, of course._

_Letha: All of the above._

_Raven: Hey, there's no reason to go stompin on an old man's feelin's, is there?_

_**Artful Coincidence**_

_Letha: How weird..._

_Rita: What?_

_Letha: I once painted a desert scene, even though I'd never really seen one before. I just wanted to try something different for fun._

_Rita: So what's your point?_

_Letha: It looked exactly like this. Sand, sand, more sand, blue sky, and annoyingly high dunes that are a bitch to climb..._

_Rita: And hearing about that just adds so much to the experience. Dammit, I knew this was a bad idea._

x x x

Good news, I remembered what I'd forgotten. Bad news, it was that pair of little children who hire the guild to look for their parents. In game, the group finds them near the lake getting in trouble with the knights for breaking curfew. From them we learn that the magistrate (Cumore) had been sending all the adults from Mantaic into the desert to search for Phaeroh. The children had been about to go out into the Sands of Kogorh to search for their own parents, but are convinced by Judith to let Brave Vesperia to do it for them.

Yeah...apparently they'd left earlier than that so we missed them.

If it hadn't been for Repede, those poor children probably would have died. A few hours into the afternoon, after a long morning of trudging through the sand (repeatedly slipping and falling until we got used to the way it shifted underfoot), Repede's hanging head lifted a bit as his ears twitched. With a bark, he lunged out of the ragged line we'd formed and ran off in another direction.

"Repede?" Yuri was the first to run after him.

Looking in that direction for the first time, I could make out shapes made dark and blurry by the need to squint against the sunlight. But it seemed like one of those dark shapes was attacking the other, which, once I was closer, I realized was actually two small shapes huddled together.

It was another one of those freakish crabs with a cactus on its back. It had been chasing two small children, who had just stumbled and were cowering in the face of danger. Fortunately for them, Repede leaped over their heads and directly for the monster. His dagger slashed powerfully, the power of the hounds neck and jaw demonstrated by how the crab monster was actually lifted into the air a bit. It flew up even further as Repede continued the attack with a spin that, in another situation, I might have described as a dog chasing its tail.

The monster crashed back down to the sand several feet back and away from the children. It landed right in front of Yuri, who used the chance to land Shining Eagle, the attack we'd seen Clay use in Nordopolica, on it from behind. As much as I would have loved to have landed the killing blow (I had a sore spot about these monsters since the whole spine in my arm thing), that honor went to Judith. 'Cause she was faster than the rest of us, and she basically landed on the thing from the air halberd first. It was very dead by the time the rest of us had caught up.

The children were crying, the girl burying her face into the arms and chest of her older brother. "Ma-mama!" she gasped between sobs.

Her brother looked as if he wanted to cry for their parents too, a few tear tracks even stood out in the sand stuck his cheeks when they'd fallen, but was holding back for the sake of his sister. "Th-thank you," he told us, tripping over his words as he couldn't entirely mask his shock.

Yuri nodded to accept the gratitude, but fixed them with a stern look. "Just what are a couple of kids like you doing out here on your own?"

"We're look-" the boy broke off as his voice rasped a bit and he began coughing.

Estelle was quickly kneeling in the sand next to him, holding out her own canteen. "Here, drink some of this." He took it and drank a long gulp. Judith was already sharing her water with the little girl, and cautioning them both not to drink too fast.

Once refreshed again the children, Alph and Layla, told their story. The others learned the bare details about Cumore sending people to look for Phaeroh, minus the fact that it was Cumore's doing, and shared the concern over what the empire's purpose could be.

But we couldn't linger over the things we didn't have enough information on to figure out (_ah__ ha__, __yes__, __well__ never __mind __me__..._). The more immediate problem was what to do with the children.

"They need to go back. They'll die if they stay out here any longer," Judith said bluntly.

"But what about mom and dad?" the boy, Alph, protested, his voice rising in shrillness from panic. Layla began sniffling again, and Estelle reached out to hug the little girl. She was giving Judith a torn look, as if she was appalled at the krytian's words but knew she couldn't disagree. But clearly she wanted to find a solution to help the children without endangering them.

And Judith came through, "We'll look for your parents. You two should go home so you'll be there when they get back."

The children's eyes widened, "Really? You'll do that?"

"I don't lie," her head tilted a bit, and then she looked to Karol, who was taking a sip from his canteen. "...You don't mind, do you Karol?" As it _was_ nominally his decision, being our guild boss and all.

And he thought hard, weighing the pros and cons and the responsibilities of the situation like a good guild boss should. Heck, no, he immediately said, "Nope. Fine by me."

Rita rolled her eyes at him while crossing her arms, "You're surprisingly agreeable."

Estelle, however, was beaming at him. "His guild is guided by justice, after all." Rita sighed a bit, as she couldn't deny it would be a despicable thing to just ignore the situation.

"Thanks, everyone!" Layla squealed, hugging each of us in turn starting with Estelle and Judith. When it was my turn, I found myself remembering the last time a child had hugged me. _It__ was __Pauly__, __back __when __we__'__d __both __been__ trapped__ in __Ragou__'__s __basement__ and __finally __been __rescued_... Layla squeaked a bit as I hugged her back with a squeeze. _It__'__s__ always __saddest__ when __the __children __must __suffer__, __and __can__'__t __do__ anything __for __themselves_.

When Layla squirmed out of my arms, Alph was holding something out to Judith. The krytian's eyes softened a bit as he dropped a glass bead into her palm. She recognized it as a child giving his favorite treasure in payment.

"Alright then," Yuri drew our attention. "So we've got another job. But we can't take these guys with us, or leave them to fend for themselves on the way back either."

"Should we go back with them?" Estelle asked.

Struck with a sudden fear, I sharply said, "No!" The others all looked at me in surprise. "I mean...we don't want to have to keep making trips into the desert, right? After all, we need to get back to Nordopolica in time for the new moon." _Because__ if__ we __miss__ this__ new __moon__ and__ the__ chance__ to__ talk__ to __Belius__, __the__ knights __and __the __Hunting __Blades __will __make __their __moves __without __us__. __We__'__d __never __get__ another __chance__, __and __it __could __throw__ everything __off __track_.

Yuri raised an eyebrow at my words, before switching his attention briefly to Raven. "How about that, Old Man? Do you want to just go back without us?"

"Not a chance, not all by myself," the archer answered easily. "There's always the next time if I'm late. The Don'll just have ta live with it." Not what I wanted to hear him say. I gripped my left hand tightly in my right, frustrated that I couldn't think of anything to say that would convince them to not waste any extra time. Not that I considered helping the children a waste, but still!

"We don't really need for all of us to escort the children back." My head whipped around to look at Judith, my unexpected ally. "It should be fine if just a few of us went."

"That's true," Yuri nodded slowly, "And we really don't want to waste any time in finding their parents. There's no guarantee they won't be attacked or run out of any provisions at any time." _Oh__ yes__, __of__ course__. __I__ slipped __into __gamer__'__s __logic __for __a __moment__, __and__ forgot __that __they __can__'__t __be __found __and__ helped __at __our __leisure_.

"So who's gonna go back with the kids?" Raven asked.

"I-" Estelle started, but was interrupted by Judith.

"You're still looking for Phaeroh," she reminded her. "There would be no meaning in us finding him if you weren't with us." Estelle bowed her head.

"I want Repede to go back," Yuri decided unexpectedly. "He's not doing well with this heat." Indeed, Repede had been panting heavily the whole time, head and tail both hanging low with exhaustion. He whined a bit when our attention was brought to him. "I hate to say it," and the swordsman sounded highly reluctant, "but it might be better if he stayed there too."

"Right, so Repede and who else?" I looked around at the group. _Is__ this __okay__? __Splitting __everyone __up__? __What__'__ll __happen__ if __someone __misses__ the __events __at __Yormgen__?_ "I'll go with them," I found myself saying. _That __could__ be __the __solution__, __since __I __already __know __everything __we__ learn __there__... __Estelle __needs __to __stay __with__ the __group__, __as __Judith __established__. __Judith __would __probably __prefer __staying __just __in__ case __they __actually __managed__ to __meet __Phaeroh__ (__not __that __they __will__), __and __Rita__'__s __carrying __the __apatheia right now__, __so __plot __would __unhinge __if __she __weren__'__t __there__._

_Yuri__...__well__, __it__'__s __better __if __he__'__s __near __Estelle __in __order__ to __protect __her__. __And __learning__ about __the __apatheia __first__hand__. __Otherwise __it __might __not __make __the __right __impact __on __him_. He had, after all, freely admitted he learned better from experience than books and such. Though for Raven and Karol... _Well__, __Raven __gets __to __see __what __an __apatheia __really __is__, __which __to __him__ seems __important __since __he__ was __ordered __to__ look __for __it__. __BUT__, __Alexei __wants __them__._ Derailing Alexei's plans was something I didn't think I'd mind too much. Karol. _Yeah__, __won__'__t __make __a__ difference __if __he__'__s __there__ or __not_. Ah, that sounded mean. But honestly, in Karol's case, any path he took that encouraged him taking responsibility would probably do him good.

While my mind was whirring through its analysis and calculations, the others seemed to be considering the issue themselves. Though their thoughts probably took very different directions than mine.

"If that's what you want, then it should be alright," Judith was the first to say. "And one more should go, so it won't be a problem if any monsters attack."

"In that case, the other person should be..." Yuri paused and looked around one last time, but before he could say anything-

"I'll go with 'em and make sure nothin' bad happens," Raven cut in.

..._Huh?_

That was odd, I wouldn't have thought Raven would volunteer. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to stay in the group that had Estelle and Judith? So that he could keep an eye on the princess and flirt like a perv?

"If I do a good job, will ya reward me, Judith darlin'?" he crowed.

..._Ah_. Totally a moment for sweatdrops and blank expressions.

Yuri shrugged a bit, "Then it's settled. Repede, Letha, and the Old Man will take them back."

We started dividing some of the supplies into my bag to use in emergencies on the way back, and gave both children one of the extra canteens since they'd already run out of the water they'd brought in their own, toy-like ones.

And then I realized..._Shit__! __What__ if __there__'__s __an __heirloom__ piece __in __Yormgen__?_ And as the possibility sank in, another occurred to me, _And __what __about __the __apatheia__? __If __I __leave __things __as __they __are__, __Duke __will __just __destroy__ it__! __I __want __to __try __and__ save __Belius__...__but __it __would __be __a __waste __if __we __just __had __to __go __back __to __her __down __the __road__ and __ask __her __to __die __for __the __greater __good __like __the __group __has __to__ with __the __other __Entelexeia__._ It was more complicated than 'asking them to die', since there was the whole reborn as a spirit aspect, but still...

That aside, what should I do? "Uhh," I started, as I slung my now heavier bag back over my shoulder (why didn't we make Raven carry the stuff? Though I wouldn't give my bag to him if I could help it...), "It'll only take a day or two at most to see them back, and unless you guys get really lucky, you'll probably still be looking." If not for the kids' parents, then for Phaeroh, my words should have hopefully implied. "In that case, is there some kind of landmark where we could all meet up again?" I looked to Judith while asking, hoping she knew about the small oasis somewhere deeper in the desert. If it was there. Like it was supposed to be. ...Hopefully.

"If I recall," Judith said thoughtfully, "there is a spring where we could also refill the canteens. Here," she got the map from Karol's bag (Yes, Karol is in charge of maps. He seems to have fun looking at them and making notes as we travel) and pointed out a spot closer to the western side of the desert, "I think it's somewhere in this area."

My unease was somewhat relieved. _So__ that__'__s __the __same__... __Okay__, __things __will __go __the __way __they__'__re __supposed __to __for __a __little __while __longer__, __and__ I __can __still __follow__ my __own __agenda__. __Everything__'__ll __work __out_.

With a tentative meeting point set, Raven and I had no more reason to dally. With a wave, Raven going, 'Judiiith, I'll be back soon~!', we parted with the others and headed back in the direction of Mantaic with two children in tow.

x x x

_**Backtrack**_

_Letha: Are we theeere yet?_

_Raven: No, not yet._

_Letha: Agggh, how much longer?_

_Raven: Ya know it won't be any faster than it took ta get out this far._

_Letha: It feels like it's taking longer!_

_Repede: *Whine!*_

_Raven: Aw, now ya've got the pooch whinin' too! Ya both gotta have more spirit, and then we'll be there before ya know it!_

_Letha: How the hell do you still have so much energy...?_

x x x

Alph and Layla had tried very hard to keep up with us adults. I thought it probably had something to do with the fact that since they'd failed to find their parents on their own, they at least didn't want to come off as a burden. But they were, in the end, only children and had been alone in the desert for most of the day. It didn't take long for walking to be too much effort for them.

Layla had been leaning against Repede's shoulder, the dog nobly supporting her. Her brother looked like he needed help too, but wasn't in order not to overburden Repede or appear weak in front of his little sister.

_Now__ that__'__s __all __sweet __and__ cute __for __a__ big __brother__, __but __not __really __helping __right __now_. I pulled ahead of the group and stopped in front of them, so they all had to stop as well in order not to run into me. "You," I pointed to Raven, "carry him," my finger dropped to point at Alph.

"What?" they both exclaimed at once.

"I-I don't need to be carried!"

"I already said, I only wanna carry girls!"

"No way," I punched Raven in the shoulder, since Rita wasn't there to do it. "Besides, you wouldn't ask a delicate girl to carry the heavier one, would you?" That part I said while scooping Layla up into my arms. She wiggled around until her arms were wrapped around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder, too tired to complain.

Carrying Layla also gave Alph an excuse to stop being tough. What boy could live down being carried while his sister walked? His protests lost half their effort, and Raven had to give into the demands of chivalry and boost the boy up onto his back.

And that's how we'd been traveling for the last hour. Unfortunately, while we weren't slowed down the pace of tired children, having to carry those children made the trip seem to stretch out. I tried to bear it in silence, but dammit! It was hot, and I was tired, and Layla had fallen asleep, and _Raven__was__too__damned__energized__!_

"Heeey..."

"Now now, Letha," he drawled in a patronizing tone that made me bristle a bit, "if yer just patient a bit longer, ya can take another swim once we're back in Mantaic." _Oooh__, __he__'__s__right__!_ I perked up immediately at the prospect. Which he noticed, and he grinned rakishly, "Be sure ta tell me so I can join ya, m'kay?"

"OLD PERV!"

"Nyahaha!" Raven took off at a run with me chasing behind him, intent on kicking him in the shins til they were black and blue.

x x x

"Damn that geezer," I grumbled, collapsing on my bed at the inn. It was hard to believe that just that morning, I'd left this room and expected to be gone for at least a week. The innkeeper had seemed pretty surprised and a bit confused to see us so soon, but we explained that we had just stayed back for one night and would go after the others in the morning. It felt like the knight was glaring at us...

I'd been in for a bit of a scare when we returned to Mantaic. Raven and I had returned the children to their home, and the archer had gone back to the inn saying he wanted to sleep. And 'not ta go swimmin' without tellin' him first.' Irritated by the heat and exhausting day, I hadn't been in the mood to get into any witty jokes or insults.

No longer in the mood to swim, I had headed back to the inn at my own pace. It was then I'd caught a flash of powder blue hair. The glimpse had my head practically spinning, trying to find it again. And sure enough, at the end of another street I'd seen Cumore in all his posturing glory. A couple of sycophants (they were both nodding like bobbleheads, what else could they be?) were tripping along at his heels as he crossed an intersection.

I about faced again, shoulders hunched a bit. Sure, he'd only seen my face once back in Caer Bocram, but wouldn't it be just my luck if that was enough for him to remember me? It would be just like him to hold a grudge against anyone who trash talked him and insulted his misplaced sense of pride. _Eeh__, __don__'__t __be __ridiculous__... __A__ pompous__ ass __like __him __won__'__t __remember __a__ "__common __rat__" __like __you__, __as __he __said__, __so __leeet__'__s__ just __go __back __to __the __inn __all __normal __like__..._

..._Lying __in __my __room__ is __no __good_, I decided, _I__'__m__ only __thinking __of __annoying __things__, __and __can__'__t __get __comfortable __enough __here__ to __calm __down_. It wasn't as hot at the desert at noon, but the chill of night hadn't completely set in yet either. My room just felt stifling.

_What__ I __need__ is __a__ walk __by __the __lake__. __Without __Raven_.

Quietly, so that the archer and professional spy wouldn't notice (and Cumore, if he'd deigned to sleep in a building that housed the common rabble), I slipped out of the inn. Unlike the night before I didn't bring any lights with me, instead walking slowly and trying to remain aware of my immediate surroundings. _This __is__...__nostalgic__?_

I could hear the water nearby, and then saw it reflecting the stars in the sky. I stopped to pull off my boots and socks, leaving them off to the side, then walked forward again until I felt the water lapping at my feet. Smiling to myself, I sat down and left my feet to soak in the water. Also, I withdrew my mp3 player, which I had put inside one of my pants pockets before going out. Holding it close to shield the blue light from its screen, I turned it on and stuck my ear buds in, happy for a chance to listen to the music I missed.

"_D__' __you __breathe __the __name __of__ your __savior __in __your __hour __of __need__,  
__And__ taste __the __blame __if __the__ flavor __should__ remind __you __of __greed__?  
__Of__ implication__, __insinuation__ and __ill __will__, '__til __you __cannot __lie __still__,  
__In __all __this __turmoil__, __before __red __cape __and__ foil __come __closing__ in __for __a __kill__  
_

"Carnival of Rust"...I could remember playing it on my computer, back in my door room. It had made a place on my list of favorites, and...

"_Come feed the rain  
'cause I'm thirsty for your love dancing underneath the skies of lust  
Yeah, feed the rain  
'cause without your love my life ain't nothing but this carnival of rust  
_

...And I'd often listen to it while walking around campus, or when I went out at night in good weather to stargaze.

"_It's all a game, avoiding failure, when true colors will bleed  
All in the name of misbehavior and the things we don't need  
I lust for after no disaster can touch, touch us anymore  
And more than ever, I hope to never fall, where enough is not the same it was before  
_

That was where that nostalgia from a little while ago had come from. At night, I would walk without light. Nearly everywhere you could go on campus had more than enough light to see by, but the good places to see the stars had very little. There was that clearing in the trees, for example. I'd almost gone there instead of to the lakeside that night.

"_Come feed the rain...  
'cause I'm thirsty for your love dancing underneath the skies of lust  
Yeah, feed the rain  
'cause without your love my life ain't nothing but this carnival of rust  
Yeah, feed the rain  
'cause I'm thirsty for your love dancing underneath the skies of lust  
Yeah, feed the rain  
'cause without your love my life ain't nothing but this carnival of rust_

I had memorized all the words to this song, and followed along with the ending out loud.

"_Don__'__t__ walk__ away__, __don__'__t__ walk__ away__, __oh__, __when__ the__ world__ is__ burning__  
__Don__'__t __walk __away__, __don__'__t __walk __away__, __oh__, __when __the __heart __is __yearning__  
__Don__'__t __walk __away__, __don__'__t __walk __away__, __oh__, __when__ the __world __is __burning__  
__Don__'__t__ walk __away__, __don__'__t__ walk __away__, __oh__, __when __the __heart __is __yearning__."_

There was the crack and rustle of wood snapping and foliage being pushed aside.

..._Please__ tell __me__ I__ haven__'__t__ been__ overheard__ again_.

Slowly, I turned to look over my shoulder. Behind me I could only see the dark shapes of the palm trees and plants growing around the oasis. I stared hard at them, looking for movement or anything out of place.

Slowly, something large detached itself from the surrounding darkness. It turned it's head in my direction, and looked at me with orange eyes with a fiery glow. _What__-? __How __did __a__ monster __get __inside __the__ barrier__?_ My hand flailed to the belts at my hips, grasping for a dagger. But before I could scramble to my feet two more shapes, smaller and like pale dogs, emerged. They were arranged in a formation that showed deference to the larger, darker one, and when it continued walking past me they followed without showing any interest in the girl shaking at the water's edge.

I could see them more clearly now, and I recognized the description of white dogs with, I could see now, red ears. "Fairy dogs...! Cù Sìth!"

On Earth, there are dozens of stories about supernatural dogs. It's like every culture has at least one. Typically huge and dark, some even described as being a mass of vines and grass, and nearly all bad omens. Cù Sìth just happened to be one of the names I could recall easiest, as it was similar to the Cat Sìth that was the namesake of the Final Fantasy VII character.

And these fairy dogs were wounded. I could see the brilliant red blood standing out clearly on their white fur, and deep gashes along their flanks. "What...what are you doing here?" I whispered as they passed by and off into the night. "What the hell are the fairies even doing in Terca Lumireis...?" There was, of course, no answer but my player softly crooning into my ear.

"_The__ wolves__, __my__ love__, __will __come__  
__Taking__ us __home __where __dust __once __was __a __man__  
__Is__ there __life __before __a __death__?  
__Do__ we__ long__ too __much__?  
(__And __never __give __in__)_

_"__Howl__! __Seven__ days __to __the __wolves__  
__Where__ will __we__ be__ when__ they__ come__?  
__Seven__ days __to __the __poison__  
__And__ a __place__ in __heaven__  
__Time__ drawing __near __as__  
__They__ come__ to__ take__ us__."_

x x x

Graaaah! Awkward parts I'm not entirely satisfied with. In my mind, I can justify them, but don't know if they come across alright. Raven's volunteering being chief among them. My logic: in the omake I have established that he's keeping an eye on Letha as well. Estelle is his priority, but she's not about to run off without finding Phaeroh or the kids parents, so he can safely bet she'll stay in the desert. Letha, on the other hand, still has some mysterious things going on about her, so staying close and keeping an eye on her would be the best course of action for a spy. But his excuse of getting Judith to praise him sounded weak to me...

_But_ I got to some sneaky things that have me chortling evilly to myself.

Songs:

"Carnival of Rust" by Poets of the Fall

"7 Days to the Wolves" by Nightwish. Only the first verse and chorus.


	42. Chapter 42: A Moment of Silence Please

__Shiroi, you just _had_ to mention Amnesia on Letha's formspring, didn't you? And I just _had_ to look up videos taken of people playing the game and freaking out. Goddamn. Worst part is: I'm watching these clips and thinking, "If I threw an SI into the mix, she'd either be running away with Daniel screaming her head off, or running _at_ the monsters with a bloody machete. Still screaming her head off."

Then, because I love Poets of the Fall's "War", I looked into Alan Wake. Not as scary but has some pretty freaky shit right from the get go, especially if you think of yourself as a writer.

Game Dialogue: You don't even recognize me, do you, writer?

Sylph Writer: HO Snap, you talking to me?

Game Dialogue: You think you're God? You think you can just make up stuff? Play with people's lives and kill them when you think it adds to the drama?

Sylph Writer: _I'M SORRY_-_! D8 _

Yeah. Worse guilt trip than when I watched _Stranger than Fiction._ For a good ten seconds. So I wrote this chapter while "enjoying" those two games playing in the background. Maybe, to some of you, that'll explain some things.

Anywho, important announcement time. Haven't gotten anymore votes in the polls for awhile, so I'm closing that NOW! Contest is OVER! And the winner iiiiiis-!

"Father" by Accessblade!

Second place is "Late Night Talks" by Dreamer's Samhain! What to award you...you can ask for a skit/brief conversation about a topic of your choice. Similar to, like, the Ame Omake but in the main fic. Brief character exploration.

Accessblade, your prize is the privilege of requesting a cameo for a character of your choice, and/or to assign a job for Brave Vesperia to tackle as a guild! Those two things can work together, cameo OC making job request or something, though you're free to just ask for the cameo or for an already in game character to make a new request (in character).

Dreamer's Samhain

Angelic:

Oh, would you look at that. I suppose that was a bit of a cliffhanger. I wonder why...

**:D** IT'S THE CREEPY SMILE OF DOOM, ONCE AGAIN! YOU GONNA FLIP!

**:D**

Some bloke:

*Scratches head* I likewise think it's rude to not at least try to answer reviews, so... Thanks for popping in, please come again?

Songs mentioned early in the chapter:

More of "7 Days To The Wolves" by Nightwish and "See Who I Am" by Within Temptation. And the Halo theme, by whoever. YES.

x x x

Chapter 42: A Moment of Silence Please

x x x

"_This is-"  
_

I started a bit, having mentally blanked while trying to reconcile the sight of the fairy dogs.

"_-where heroes-"_

_...I'm no hero._

"_-and cowards-"_

_...Gee, thanks._

"_-part ways"_

...If my player really was somehow aware and sharing premonitions with me, it had a sadistic twist to its personality. Must have been the bad influence from my computer.

_"Light the fire, feast  
Chase the ghosts, give in  
Take the road less traveled by  
Leave the city of fools  
Turn every poet loose_

"Howl! Seven days to the wolves-"

Shaking my head, I pressed the button to skip forward.

"_Is it true what they say?  
Are we too blind to find a way?  
Fear of the unknown  
Clouds our hearts today."  
_

"Bah! Whatever, I give up!" I heaved a sigh and picked myself up off the sandy beach. If the fairies had their pets on the prowl, and for the life of me I had no idea what that was meant to accomplish, then I very much wanted to be indoors. No matter how stuffy my inn room felt.

_"Come into my world,  
See through my eyes.  
Try to understand,  
Don't want to lose what we have."  
_

_Leeethaaa... Someone up top is trying to give you a siii~gn!_

_Shut up annoying writer's sense that loves uncanny coincidences_.

_"We've been dreaming  
But who can deny?  
It's the best way of living  
Between the truth and the lies."  
_

_Leeeethaaa~_

_Shut up I said_. I irritably kicked my heel at the ground, leaving a darker furrow in the sand. _Letha's not even my real name_. I picked up my pace a bit to get back to the inn even faster.

_"See who I am,  
Break through the surface.  
Reach for my hand,  
Let's show them that we can  
Free our minds and find a way.  
The world is in our hands,  
This is not the end._

"Fear is withering the soul  
At the point of no return.  
We must be the change we wish to see."

Why wasn't I turning it off? Because I had loved this song ever since I first listened to the CD, and it was rare enough that I had the chance to listen to any of my favorite tunes. Even if they were being coincidentally ironic and preachy at me.

_"I'll come into your world,  
See through your eyes.  
I'll try to understand,  
Before we lose what we have._

"We just can't stop believing  
Because we have to try.  
We can rise above their truth and their lies."

My feet slowed until I was standing in place, in the middle of the street.

_"See who I am,  
Break through the surface.  
Reach for my hand,  
And show them that we can  
Free our minds and find a way.  
The world is in our hands."  
_

"This isn't good..." I muttered to myself, raising my hand to rub my palm across my face. At this rate I was going to work myself up into a state where I had to tell someone, like I had come so close to telling Judith. And odds were the first friendly face I'd be able to turn to would be Raven. Alexei's spy.

_"See who I am,  
Break through the surface.  
Reach for my hand,  
Let's show them that we can  
Free our minds and find a way.  
The world is in our hands._

"This is not the end."

Hugging my arms close, I turned away from the Anteres inn, forgoing the welcoming light shining from its windows. Fairies at least were a danger I was getting used to, but I wasn't sure how to deal with accidentally spilling all the secrets I'd been sitting on for so long.

_"I hear their silence  
Preaching my blame.  
Will our strength remain  
If their power reigns?"  
_

Yeah, that was it. That's what I was worried about. Issues over whether the others would blame me for my silence or accept it, or if any of the Big Bads around would get wind and start dog fighting over me. Or if they'd all just ignore me and go on with their respective Epic Quests and World Take Overs.

_"See who I am,  
Break through the surface.  
Reach for my hand,  
And show them that we can  
Free our minds and find a way.  
The world is in our hands._

"See who I am,  
Break through the surface.  
Reach for my hand,  
And show them that we can  
Free our minds and find a way.  
The world is in our hands.

"This is not the end."

I sighed as the song concluded, not sure if I was relieved or sad that it was over. But then it was replaced by the Gregorian chant opening of the Halo theme song. Hells yeah!

"This had better be worth my time. I want to be done with Alexei's little project as soon as possible."

_Seriously? What. The. FUCK?_ I ducked behind a convenient palm tree, unplugging the ear buds to cut the sound without risking the screen lighting up. _Well, looks like I have a ringside seat for the next installment of 'Cumore, the Dastardly and Inept Usurper'!_ Said disturbing knight was standing by the town's exit, arms crossed and nose raised at an obnoxiously arrogant angle. Some lackey or another was standing before him with head bowed.

"That is, of course, if you've _finally_ brought me some good news."

"I regret to report," the lackey said in clipped tones, "that our search parties have yet to locate the monster or its lair. However, by eliminating the-"

"Which is all to say that you still have no idea."

"With all due respect, sir," and it sounded like that amounted to no respect at all, "we're getting closer every day."

"Humph," Cumore waved a disdainful hand in dismissal. "I could care less about your empty promises, what I need is results. And I don't want to so much as see your face again until you've captured the blighted beast!"

"Understood, sir." The lackey saluted and was about to leave, but Cumore apparently wasn't satisfied enough with his last comment's degree of put down.

"Lieutenant Blakely," he drawled, "be aware that if you don't have anything to show for yourself soon, you can say goodbye to your position. And then you might as well stay out in those sands until you rot."

"Yes, sir," and the lackey, Blakely, walked away stiffly. He passed by my tree, and I shrank further back while praying he was too steamed at Cumore to notice. Prayers answered, or at least taken in consideration, he stormed past without a glance my way.

With a relieved sigh I leaned heavily against the palm tree, and then tensed as the action caused the whole tree to shake. The sound of the leaves rustling was veeery audible in the otherwise quiet night. _SONUVA_-

"Who's there?" Cumore's voice rose sharply.

_Uhh,_ "Mreowr." _Honestly, has that ever actually worked for anyone?_ I risked a peek and saw that Cumore had drawn his sword. _Not working this time either._

"I warn you, breaking curfew and eavesdropping are heavy crimes. You won't get off lightly."

_Maybe if I stay veeery still and don't make anymore noise, he'll decide it's not worth the bother and go away?_ And maybe I could learn to sprout wings and fly. Which, by the way, wasn't my way of totally ruling something out since a shiny pair of wings could very well be another magical fairy side effect I had coming.

Cumore, however, was indeed coming closer to inspect the tree that had only just stopped shaking. _I hate my karma. It's totally busted_. I shrank down, trying to merge into the sparse plant life growing around the tree's base, wishing I could meld into the shadows. Cowering and hiding from _Cumore_, of all people, was humiliating. If I wanted to I could probably take him in a fight.

But you never know when something small could make big changes. Avoiding contact would be preferable.

_Whhh-thnk!_

"Geeh!" Cumore's sword whipped through the air and bit into the side of the palm tree's trunk, a few inches above my head. Which surprised a choked noise out of me. I lurched forward and stumbled upright onto my feet.

"Well well," I cringed at Cumore's smugness, "Not a cat but a rat I've caught."

_Oh what the hey, since I've already been found out,_ I straightened and turned to face Cumore directly. "I've been meaning to ask." I tilted my head inquisitively, "Is that your real hair color or did a mouse scare you so bad your hair changed?"

"What-you-how dare you!" he spluttered.

"Though blue would be a weird color in that case," tapping my finger against my chin, "so I guess that leaaaves~" I pointed at him with an overabundance of drama, "You have butt-ugly hair, don't you! And you dye it to try and make it look less gross!"

Cumore's expression was impossible to see, but I could make out how violently he was shaking. I must have pissed him off really bad. "I will cut that impertinent tongue of yours from your head!" he promised hatefully. With a tug he removed his blade from the tree and advanced on me in an unmistakably threatening manner.

_Uh, whoops. That riled him up more than I thought it would. Gasp! Could it have been true?_

Something clattered as it got kicked aside by his foot, drawing both of our attention down. It was my mp3 player, lying in the sand about a foot away from Cumore's armored boots. I must have dropped it when I got up so suddenly.

"What is _this _piece of rubbish?" he sneered and raising his foot, -_oh wait SHIT-_, he stomped on it with all his armor augmented weight.

_SCRNCH_. The sound of my player crunching into the sand broke my freaking heart. I could only stare at his foot, jaw hanging open, mind refusing to accept that the bastard just BROKE MY FRIGGIN' MP3 PLAYER.

I think I made some sort of noise, a squeak that blended anger and distress. Cumore very deliberately lifted his foot and kicked the crushed remains of my player in my direction. Swiftly I bent over and scooped it up, hoping it wasn't as bad as it had sounded. And it was still in one piece overall, but that one piece was being barely held together by wires, splintering plastic, and cracked circuit boards. There was a nasty acrid smell, which I guessed might have meant the battery was damaged and maybe leaking.

Cold metal tapped against my throat, and I realized Cumore had used my distraction to his advantage. And I was mildly glad that there was no one around to see how he'd done that so easily. "It really is high time I exterminate the pests infesting this dismal backwater. One can hardly expect me to uphold my duty as magistrate otherwise."

"Sorry," by talking my throat moved just enough that it got nicked by the sword, a bead of blood trickling down my neck uncomfortably. "But I'm not so fond of extermination." And then I flung my ruined player up into Cumore's face, startling him into drawing back slightly. Without his sword in position to kill me with just a twitch anymore, I jumped back to a more comfortable distance.

For a moment I hovered indecisively, right hand reaching for Oberon's hilt while my feet seemed more interested in continuing with the whole running away idea.

Scowling fiercely, Cumore kicked the broken player away again, though this time away from both of us to be lost somewhere in the street's shadows. _Okay, I'm done playing games with his head, let's leave and mourn my dearly departed mp3 player in peace!_ Even if, dammitall, I'd love to get in a punch to his face or something to avenge my player.

_But Cumore's already on death row, even if he doesn't know it. He's slated to die at Yuri's hand, though figuratively_. My throat constricted at the thought, which I shunted aside to deal with later. Letting go of my dao's hilt, I gave a flourishing wave to the corrupt knight captain and turned to run off into the night.

I took one stumbling step and nearly tripped as my momentum still carried me forward when I tried to stop abruptly. Cumore said something, I dunno, probably some drivel along the lines of "you can't escape from me!" but I frankly didn't care what he had to say.

I was more preoccupied by the sight of another Cù Sìth, heavily wounded and _right friggin' THERE_.

"Oooh, Lordie..."

The dark creature was massive, easily twice the size of the largest dog I'd ever seen on Earth, and had a lopsided appearance as it was actually _missing_ chunks. Its left foreleg was completely gone, and half of its matted tail. Both injuries were seeping a dark liquid (it being a fairy creature, I doubted that it would prove to be normal blood if one were to examine it) that dripped sluggishly and left a staggered trail in the street behind it. Wisps of smoke rose away from the wounds, curling and ephemeral in the dim light.

Slowly the dog raised its head, right eye glaring like baleful flame, though no light shone from the other. Seeing as its left ear was missing and smoking lightly, I would hazard to guess the creature was sporting a nasty injury that had cost it both an eye and an ear. A low growl thrummed in its chest, and it began to sniff the air noisily.

_Is it...is it dying? Those injuries, all that blood_...

"G-good gods, what is that? Who let it inside the barrier?" Cumore finally noticed we weren't alone. "N-no matter! I'll simply do away with both of you!" His bravado was highly unconvincing, as I could hear the clanking of his armor as he shuddered in terror.

But whatever he did outside my field of vision, it was enough for the Cù Sìth to perceive him as a threat. The deep growl got louder until I could feel it vibrating in my diaphragm, and its remaining ear flattened back against its skull. The barrier light glinted off of the stained fangs it bared in a snarl. Another thin stream of dark liquid dripped from its mouth to the ground.

"Cumore..." I started slowly, "Don't get it angry..."

"Don't think you can give me orders, you vermin!" Cumore scoffed, indignation overriding his fear momentarily. But that was when the Cù Sìth's growl broke into a howling roar and it sprang forward. I grabbed for my daggers, knowing I wouldn't have time to even draw those with how close it was, but the massive dog pushed past me, nearly knocking me over entirely. Instead it pounced on Cumore, sending him toppling to the ground and trying to bite at his neck. He'd be dead already if not for the gauntleted hand that had gotten caught in its jaws instead. Smoke seemed to be trailing from the creature's mouth as it wrenched his head and Cumore's arm from side to side.

Cumore lost all pretense of control as he wailed desperately, "N-no! Someone! Get it off me!"

I'd like to say that, even though I considered him first rate scum, I immediately acted to save his life. I'd like to say that. But I can't, because I didn't. And I can't say for sure if it was just shock or an honest desire to see him brutally killed that made me hesitate.

But there's no question that it was the sight of Cumore's sword cutting wildly at the Cù Sìth's side that snapped me out of it. "No, don't!" I grabbed for Cumore's sword, hissing as it cut through my gloves into my palms but not letting go. "Goddammit, man, don't kill a fairy pet!" They don't like being robbed of _anything_ they consider theirs, no matter the circumstances.

Cumore had poor leverage on the ground, so he couldn't wrench the sword out of my grip, but he was stronger than me (A surprise, he seems like such a weakling) and I couldn't get a strong hold on the metal as it was slippery with the blood from my own hands. We struggled, me nearly succeeding in getting possession of the sword (I don't know what I thought I'd do after that).

Several things happened within seconds. A wild spasm from his sword arm, in reaction to the jaws on his caught arm shifting and nearly punching through the metal gauntlet, jerked the sword to the side. It sliced into the Cù Sìth's shaggy side, spilling more dark blood over both of us and thicker streams of smoke that made it hard to see. The dog released Cumore with an agonized howl, and Cumore was finally able to hold his sword with both hands. He tried to pull it away from me and towards the fairy creature's neck, definitely to finish it off. In my panic over getting into deeper shit with the fairies, I yanked back hard on the blade, more of my blood running down and mixing with the inky blood that had begun steaming on the metal. I wasn't thinking of anything but the burning pain in my hands, and that I absolutely had to protect the fairy's dog.

My right hand let go of the sword and drew a Gemini, the sword's edge lurched close to the dog's neck as it sagged weak and panting, and the dagger plunged into his chest where the armor was impractically excluded.

The force behind the sword my left hand was still trying to hold back weakened, then vanished. Cumore's hand fell to the sand. I was left holding a blood covered sword by the blade, with a dagger planted deep in something vital.

The Cù Sìth moaned, a deep and haunting sound. Its breathing was uneven and wet sounding. It lay tangled with Cumore's body, both of them drenched with red and black blood. But it didn't seem to be losing anymore blood, and the smoke was clearing. Somehow I didn't think that was a good thing. I searched through my pockets until I found a couple of apple gels, and held them out to the dying fairy. Teeth parting slightly, its head moved forward weakly, but instead of trying to eat the gels in nipped lightly at the glove of my left hand.

It moaned one last time, and then dissolved.

I stared at the empty space and mixing pools of blood. Unwillingly, my eyes were drawn to my Gemini, still stuck in Cumore's body. Cumore's corpse. I had killed him.

_Fuck_.

x x x

God knows how long I sat by the corpse, nearly as lifeless as the body I couldn't stop staring at. I felt numb, and kept willing myself to wake up and discover this was just another messed up dream. I'd long since ruled out that my adventure as a whole was a delusion, but couldn't this part _please_ be just a nightmare? Something bad I ate or nerves getting to me in my subconscious?

There was the crunching of feet running across sand, and slowly it sank in that I was in a very incriminating position. Especially since one of the key factors, the fairy dog, had _evaporated_ and no way would anyone believe it had been inside the barrier in the first place.

Adrenalin spiking for a second fight or flight reaction, I wrenched my Gemini from Cumore and forced myself up onto my feet as I looked around wildly for whoever was coming and to see if there was anywhere close enough for me to hide. Seeing who the late arrival was kept me from making a mad dash of escape. It was Chase, and it seemed he was following the trail of dark blood.

His run slowed to a jog as he drew closer, and then stopped not far from me. As he took in the scene, I looked him over with a sort of numb surprise. His brown overcoat and pants were heavily ripped and had darker patches that could have been blood stains. There was even a cut on his forehead that was still bleeding slowly. His claymore was in one hand, but the blade reflected a clean surface. The rips in his coat made the crossbow tied to his belt more apparent and couldn't hide that the half of the bow had been snapped off, rendering it useless.

"Letha..." he breathed, voice low as if to avoid startling me, "what happened?"

"I-" I raised my hands, seeing the blood on my gloves, the cuts in my palms, and the bloody dagger I was still clutching, "I think I-I think I just stole one of Yuri's defining moments...!" A detached part of my thoughts commented snidely, _and I didn't even manage to pull off his badass style. Shame_.

Chase's hands reached out and gently removed my fingers from my dagger, me flinching back at his touch. I watched dumbly as he wiped the blade with a relatively clean corner of his coat, and then held my dagger out to me again hilt first. "You still need this."

Staring at the dagger as if I didn't recognize what it was, I finally took it gingerly and returned it to the sheath on my belt. It took a few tries, since my hands had started shaking. Once I got it in I realized Chase was kneeling by the body, inspecting not the fatal knife wound but the mangled gauntlet. What he made of that, I don't know, since he only grunted and slung the arm up around his shoulders.

I watched in shocked disbelief as he stood up and lifted the body, heaving it up until it was slung over his shoulders. Shifting it slightly to distribute the weight better, he said, "I'll take care of this, you go back to the inn and do something about your hands. Leave like normal in the morning."

"Why...?" was all I could manage, though that one little word managed to sum up most of the confusion whirling inside my gut.

He shrugged with the unburdened shoulder. "For my dad and your uncle's sakes?" Seeing my unconvinced look, he sighed. "Look, I'll tell you about it some other time, but now it's a better idea to just make yourself scarce as soon as you can."

I nodded absently and this time obeyed, though I kept looking back at him over my shoulder until I turned a corner and lost track of him. From those glances, it looked like he was carrying the body off in the direction of the quicksand Cumore was supposed to die in.

Back in my room, I peeled the damaged gloves from my hands, hissing and biting my lower lip as the blood made them stick to the edges of my wounds. Using water I'd brought in a pitcher I'd borrowed from the kitchen and a rag, I carefully cleaned the blood away and examined the cuts.

My hands _hurt_ so badly, but I didn't think anything important had been cut. Once I was sure there wasn't any dirt or anything left, I carefully fished out those two apple gels again. Slowly, I put both in my mouth and chewed the gummi like medicine. The wounds tingled and closed even as I watched, leaving only thin pink lines in my palms. Within a few days those would fade until nothing was left.

I stared at those lines until the cool light of the barrier and moon warmed to the light of early dawn.

x x x

_**Kill Steal**_

_Letha: This is...what is wrong with me? I'm shaking...but only in part because I killed someone. My first thoughts were for keeping the fairies off my back, my second was that I altered an important plot point, and that I murdered him only came last! ...I've really changed, haven't I?_

x x x

I shook his shoulder again, "Raven, get your perverted old ass out of bed!" The archer hadn't locked his door the night before, so I didn't have to rely on trying to bang his door down to wake him up. That doesn't work nearly so well as it does when the others are trying to wake me up.

The older man muttered something incoherent in his sleep, but he sounded happy.

"Well, I'll give this a try then." Taking a breath, I tried a method I'd played with the thought of testing a few times. "Woah! Judith, you shouldn't come in here without your clothes on!"

"Huh-wha..." Raven bolted up in his bed, "_Where?_" I smacked his head.

"I'd say in your dreams, but then you probably wouldn't have bothered to wake up." I tossed his bag onto his bed. "We're leaving soon."

He rubbed his head and eyed the bag like I'd dumped a pile of disgusting trash on his bed. "So early? What's the rush?"

_Trying to avoid murder charges?_ "It's a good idea to try and cover as much ground as we can now before the sun's high and the desert gets to its hottest. We can take a break then in a tent." That was the smart thing to do that I'd read about in numerous books.

He groaned but swung his legs out of bed, "Ya promise?"

"If you behave yourself," I said a bit distractedly, looking at where Repede was lying at the foot of Raven's bed. The blue hound was awake, and watching us. _He's smaller than the Cù Sìth, maybe a third its size..._ "What do you wanna do, Repede? Stay here or try the desert again?"

Repede whined, and his head drooped a bit.

"The innkeeper said he could keep an eye on the pooch," Raven told me, "Give 'im water and food, let him out for walks. The whole shtick." Repede snapped at the air in the archer's directions, as if offended at being treated like any old pet that needed a sitter when the owners were away.

"We'll try to get back as soon as possible," I assured him, "And while we're gone you can..." a single beat of hesitation, hopefully one they didn't think much of, "You can keep an eye on the situation with the knights taking people and blastia out into the desert."

Repede woofed assertively before laying his head on his paws and going back to sleep. If he was staying, no need for him to be up with the sun like us.

Raven echoed the sentiment aloud, "Lucky pooch."

x x x

We were back out in the Sands almost as soon as I could wish, stopping only to have a quick breakfast and top off our canteens. I didn't see Chase at all, and when walking the street out of town I couldn't find a trace of blood left, human or fairy. Without much humor I wondered if Chase had taken any cleaning jobs before.

This time I almost welcomed the overbearing heat. Raven didn't expect me to respond to his overly energized chatter, and my brooding was taken for heat induced lethargy. Karol had drawn up a rough map for us, Judith marking where she thought the desert spring was, and Raven took it on himself to try and use that to navigate. If we made good time, we should get there first since the others were going to take a longer route in order to search for the parents.

Like I'd suggested earlier, when the sun was near its zenith we set up a tent as a sun shade, using its monster repellent scent barrier. Declaring a nap was in order before lunch, Raven flopped down and was asleep in moments. I grudgingly lay down to follow his lead, since it had been over a day since I'd last slept. It seemed like the moment my head touched the bundle of clothes substituting as a pillow, I was asleep.

x x x

_This time I needed only to see the sunset over the massive body of water to know I was dreaming. A lucid dream...could I control it now?_

_Concentrating, I looked around. Behind me was only a wall of fog, so I could start with that. I focused on it receding, of the water vapor clearing from the air. For a moment I was successful, though I didn't uncover anything besides more grass behind me. Then the fog rushed forward and swept over me all at once. I couldn't see anything but gray and white._

"_I can't let you do that now, can I?"_

x x x

When I woke up, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing before falling asleep. Slowly, I raised myself onto my elbows and looked around.

A tent, heat, bright sunlight filtering through the material and open flap, the feel of sand under my hands.

The Sands of Kogorh.

I sagged, still feeling exhausted. But we'd probably need to get moving soon, so more sleep was out of the question. Not that I wanted to, after more dreams. At least it wasn't a nightmare about Jasper or Cumore chasing me through hell, but that something like that wasn't even surfacing in my subconscious was a little concerning as well.

_Don't look for the downside to everything. Nightmares about it wouldn't help anything_.

"Letha, sweet, time ta eat!" Raven crowed.

I wasn't hungry, but eating was necessary to look normal and keep up my strength for any monster fights. Though the fact that we hadn't encountered anything besides a few dead monsters was odd. Unless the others were doing a lot of fighting while covering as much ground as possible, and anything they didn't kill was hiding. Convenient for us.

We'd been trudging through the sands for another three hours, Raven repeatedly declaring that the oasis would be 'Jus' over the next dune,' until I threatened to stuff Karol's map in his mouth. God, that was worse than the standard 'Are we there yet?'

Tired and moody, I didn't immediately realize when his rambling took a direction that cut close to everything I'd really been hoping to avoid. "Did ya hear that racket outside last night?"

"...What racket?" I asked wearily, not immediately making the connection. "Was it another carriage the knights were escorting or something?"

"Nah, this sounded more like some people were fighting monsters." I tensed, _Oh shit..._ "It happened twice, an' the second time it sounded like someone was screamin'."

"O-oh..." But if Raven the heavy sleeper had heard it... "If there was a monster attack, why didn't you go to see what was happening?"

"I don't think anybody in that town would want ta go out at night," he said thoughtfully. "Not with the Knights causin' problems. Besides, if monsters got in somehow, there's more 'n enough Knights to deal with 'em."

"Yes, you're right..." It made sense, and had worked in my favor last night. Sort of. The fairy dogs might never have shown up if there were more people out after dark. But that train of thought wouldn't accomplish anything.

"But didn't ya hear it? I thought it'd wake ya up fer sure." He peered at me curiously from under the cloth folds of his head covering.

"N-no, I must've slept through it somehow..." I looked away, squinting as if I'd had glare from the sun in my eyes. Hopefully, Raven would think I'd be just as prone to staying inside instead of facing whatever it was on my own. And by the time we got to Yormgen, he should have forgotten.

Maybe another hour after that, the archer jumped up and down (_what the crap, he solar powered or something?_) and pointed out the glimmer of red sunlight shining off a waterfall of all things. Dredging up my reserves of energy, I sprinted after him to the shadow of the cliff face the small waterfall emerged from.

It was picturesque, and the water was the most refreshing thing in existence. I was cheered greatly, as the spring was the best thing that had happened since the night before. I even managed to start joking with Raven about how Rita was probably making things worse with her fireballs, and Karol was jumping at bug mirages.

I was just thinking about getting dinner started, since Raven had voluntarily covered lunch (simple sandwiches though they may have been, he'd been careful to make mine the way I like it) when Raven broached the topic of last night _again_.

"Ya know, I never said that I didn't go to look inta things last night."

Oh fuck and shit on a fan.

I tried to look casual as I started rummaging through our bags, still deciding what to make. "Really. You made it sound like you stayed inside."

He was stretched out on the sand, half in and half out of the reach of the shadow. Like a cat that had fallen asleep basking in the sun, only to have his patch of light move. "Yeah, I waited til it sounded like they were all gone before I went out fer a look around. Funny thing, I didn't find any sign of a fight at all."

Chase apparently took his cleaning jobs seriously, and was good enough to put any hard-to-please-mother-in-law to shame.

"All I found was this," my heart literally stopped for a second when held up my poor, abused mp3 player. Even Chase couldn't do a perfect job it seemed. "I dunno what this is s'pposed to be, I thought Rita would like ta have a look at it." He tossed the broken player to me and I nearly fumbled my catch. "Have ya ever read about anything like this in your aunt's books?"

Cradling my player in my hands, looking at it mournfully as if it were the remains of one of my dearest friends, I felt a twinge of remorse that I was even then trying to think of a lie that would make Raven lose interest and forget it.

It was no use. If I told him I didn't know, he'd show it to Rita and the others. If I made up a story, he'd still show it to them and see if either the mage or the princess had heard about my story before. Which they wouldn't have, and then Rita would get curious and keep poking at it and oh dear... And if I didn't think of something soon, Raven might start to wonder why I acted funny about it. I already had probably tripped a few warning flags at some point in the day.

"Hey Raven?" I said quietly. "Do me a favor?"

"What, yer askin' this old man to do more work after a long day walkin' through a hot desert?" he groaned as if he hadn't been practically skipping in circles around me earlier.

"No..." I swallowed, "Can you forget about this?"

He was quiet. What did that mean? "So you know what it is." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Does that mean it's yours?"

Raven was sharp. Or should I say, Schwann was sharp?

Well, I could be too.

"Please just forget about it? And don't tell the others about it."

"Now Letha," he sing songed, "it's not nice to keep secrets from yer friends!"

And his little wheedling comment backfired by giving me a perfect opening. "How right you are, Captain Schwann." _And I might as well have written 'SUSPICIOUS' in big red letters on my forehead_.

He laughed a bit too quickly, "C'mon, that one isn't even funny!"

"I believe there is a saying... 'The truth hurts'." It most certainly does.

"What makes ya think I'm a Knight? And a captain of all things?" he still tried to keep a light tone, as if playing along with a joke. We both knew it was anything but. And neither of looked at the other, his eyes still fixed on some point in the sky as he lay on his back, me bustling around making arrangements to boil pasta.

"Lots of little things," I tried to make it sound as if I'd merely put the pieces together. Which I kind of had, while watching the game, but they give the player more obvious clues there. "For one thing, you're awfully chivalrous for an old pervert."

"Be still my bleeding heart! When will all of you admit I'mma perfect gentleman?"

"Never. Next, I've heard a lot of descriptions of Captain Schwann, and you actually fit it pretty well." At least he wasn't as obvious as Superman and Clark Kent.

"I have heard he's an awful handsome devil."

"And Yuri told me about that first meeting you guys had in Zaphias. You know, when Alexei came to see you personally in jail?"

He had no smart comment for that. And I prayed he'd never ask Yuri if the swordsman had really told me that part.

I stopped in my work for a minute to walk over and stand directly over him. Our eyes met, no more laughter and all seriousness. "I've known for awhile. And I haven't told anyone."

"And your saying you'll tell them all if I don't forget?" he asked, and at that moment it really was Schwann, not Raven.

But Schwann was a good man too, and just as much a part of him as Raven.

"No." I held his gaze and tried to convey how honest I was about my words. "I'm saying, that I've kept your secret on trust, because I'm your friend. And I believe that you're my friend as well."

I wasn't looking forward to when he betrays us on Alexei's orders. Even knowing he was conflicted, and that he'd join us to try and make things right again, the thought of having to fight him someday was painful. Could he decide to leave Alexei for us early?

He was still watching me, searching my expression for some sign or other, before nodding slowly. "...I won't tell them."

That hurt, because my first thought was that despite his promise, he might tell Alexei.

I hoped the others would find the spring and join us soon.

x x x

YOU ALL DIDN'T EXPECT THAT, DID YA NOW?

Let us observe a moment of silence for the mp3 player, who fell valiantly in the line of duty.

I don't even know how long ago I decided to have Letha kill Cumore early. The idea came to me and I went "DUDE, I don't know HOW I'm going to do that but I WILL." Took a lot of effort to set it up, and it was still hard to get the plot to cooperate. Especially since I was trying to not recycle Birdman's Death in anyway.

And God, I love Raven. And now I love Schwann. So much I can do with writing with him! And did anyone else think Raven seemed to be doing a better job than Yuri at interrogating Letha? If she didn't have the info to turn the tables on him, just imagine!


	43. Chapter 43: Quarter Moon

__I mentioned my upcoming birthday to a reviewer (July 16, if anyone cares), and that brought up the point that Letha's birthday is the same as mine. She _is_ an SI after all, with myself as a base (though she's gone through so much, I regard her more as a sister of sorts now. Weeeeird sisters). Point I'm getting at, is that I thought it would be good to establish some things about Letha's timeline.

She was abducted sometime during earlyish September, when summer's cooling down but it hasn't really gotten cold (in Western New York, that is, as you'll recall she was on Lake Ontario). And Terca Lumireis was enjoying spring when she got there (I say so, because I don't recall the game making any specific reference to the season). So she's probably somewhere in early to mid summer herself, but still about twenty and a half years old. Weeeird.

Letting you all know, Accessblade has chosen her prize, and we've discussed when it'll get worked into the story. You'll ALL know when we get to it. Dreamer's Samhain and I have been discussing the second place prize, and at the moment it is on reserve to be cashed in at her discretion. I'll make a note of it when it comes, for anyone interested.

Angelic:

Amnesia. Yeah, I'd never play it. One thing watching it on youtube, then you can just laugh at how the person playing it is whimpering and screaming like a wussy little girl. Play it myself, and I'd become the wussy little girl (though at least with less actual screaming). Alan Wake (name of the game and the main character) bears a slight similarity to Silent Hill but is overall less frightening. Though it _does_ do things like throwing freakin' _trains_ at you at unexpected moments. Awesome plot too. And music.

Shut up, me, this is not a game review.

Right, so, I would like some awesome friiiiies with my awesome saaaauce! :D I have no idea what I've just asked for...

Some Bloke:

Yep, expected people to be conflicted about the Cumore killing. Part of the reason I wanted to go ahead with it. Now I have to live up to the bar I've set for myself, and make sure you all don't decide "this is the point where things started slipping downhill." A challenge~

Totally nothing wrong with a guy saying he likes Yuri. And I can keep a straight face all of five seconds after saying that. (At least I kept the "Y" capitalized...) But yeah, Yuri is badass and Raven is awesome, and they probably won't let me get away with letting Letha get away with all the last chapter for too long.

GalactaLlama:

Firstly, all I did was read your name and then was cursing about the Llama song trying to get stuck in my head. It's trying again as I speak.

Next, awww jeez! This is the kind of review that gives me a warm fuzzy glow and makes me want to crank out five chapters at once. Nothing would make me happier than if I could manage to get responses like this on a wholly original piece of work (I have several ideas I someday hope to strongearm somebody into publishing), and knowing there are people who appreciate FTaBV so much gives me hope that it'll happen.

The Smurfette Principle:

A short, near speechless review tells me as much as a long one! It tells me I can leave someone speechless. ;) Yay me~ I'll just pretend it didn't take me a week of struggling over one scene to manage it.

Woah, lots of chatter and review replies in this Author's Note.

x x x

Chapter 43: Quarter Moon

x x x

The minor confrontation left an awkward tension in the air as I finished making our spaghetti dinner, and I wasn't sure what to say to break the silence. Nothing that wouldn't just fall flat and die came to mind.

It was actually Raven who tried first, and as Raven, not Schwann.

"So, when ya gonna tell me what that thing is?"

I put down the pot carefully, shaking my robe's sleeves so the folds of cloth I'd used as pot holders fell naturally again, before turning to give him a disappointed look. Hadn't he _just_ promised?

Raven had moved to sit on a rock, closer to the spring and the small fire he had helped me start to boil the water with. "Hey," he waved his hands in front of him in that gesture people use to say 'chill out' or 'it's not what it looks like.' "I really swear I won't tell anyone! But ya gotta tell me or I'll just die of curiosity!"

"Curiosity only kills cats," I said dryly. Not caring that I was being pretty obvious, I picked up my bag from where I'd left it leaning against his rock and moved it out of his reach. My player was stashed in there again, though I didn't slip it into the hidden pocket like normal. If Raven did decide to snoop and couldn't find it, that would be a dead giveaway that I had a hiding spot.

"Oh c'mon!" he begged, "Can't ya even give me a hint?"

I dug through the bags to find something to use as a colander. "Okay. One hint."

"Just a hint won't hu-wait, you will?" he perked up, obviously not having expected to win. Or at least, not without wearing me down through endless nagging first. "What is it?"

"It's broken," I deadpanned. The archer facepalmed and groaned.

"I kinda guessed that part already." He lowered his hand and gave me a pleading puppy dog look. On him it looked more like a past his prime hunting dog begging for that tasty looking sandwich you just finished making.

I snorted at the comparison, "Alright, alright." Picking up the pot again I slowly poured the water out into a small metal strainer I had found in Raven's bag. "It's kinda like a music box."

"A music box?" Raven rubbed his stubbled chin, "Really? Seems too small fer that." I just shrugged and began shaking the pasta in the strainer to remove the last of the water, already having given him the one hint I promised.

"Where'd ya get it?" I said nothing, though the silence was more of taunting sort (like a game of verbal keep away) instead of an uncomfortable one like before. "Okay then, how'd ya lose it?" _Keep awaaay~!_

He grumbled a little bit as I kept my lips tightly shut and twisted in a smug little smile.

"What song was it?" he tried. _Heheh, singular. There were so many songs on that thing I don't even remember what's on my playlist_.

I began humming "Brothers" from FMA (yeah, don't mind so much when people overhear me humming) while working on the sauce next. Nothing fancy, just tomato sauce with some seasoning. If I'd been cooking for just myself, I would have preferred a touch of melted butter with chopped black olives, but I was fully aware most people didn't share my particular tastes in that respect. Just because they'd never thought of it before...

Raven listened to my humming, head cocked as if trying to place the melody, and a slight frown was starting to form as he couldn't. _Ha, take that mister nosy man!_

Dinner was like a game of twenty questions without any answers. I got tired of it pretty quickly and started to just ignore him completely until he got the message. With just the two of us it felt lonely, and I wished we could find some safe topic neither of us would mind talking about.

"I'm bored," I announced, to try and remedy the situation.

"Should we take that quick dip we never got around to back in town?" The dish cloth I was using to clean up with smacked wetly against the side of his face. "Alright, yer loss."

"I'm sure it is." The sky was getting rather rosy purple, we'd probably be out of sunlight soon. Time to set up camp for real.

We relocated to a spot further along the cliff side, downwind from the oasis, and set up our tent there. Camping right on the spring was dangerous. As the best water source for miles monsters would flock there, and would probably get pretty testy about a tent and a pair of cocky humans hogging the watering hole for themselves. There was no guarantee the scent barrier would deter them if they were thirsty enough. The important thing was that we were in sight of the water.

Full dark had set in, and Raven and I sat by our small fire as the heat of day was slowly bled off by the night. I stared dreamily at the flickering light and smoldering coals. Then, again mindful of our approaching deadline, I looked up into the sky. The moon was waning, almost at the last quarter. We had time yet, but it was slipping away faster than I'd like. I told myself not to think about it.

A beautiful night, a tent to sleep in, a fire to sit by. Companionship. It stirred something in me, old memories that wouldn't quite surface, and I had a very strong need to hear a story.

"Once upon a time," I started, and stopped just as abruptly. What came next, I wasn't sure. The stories that came to mind wouldn't make sense to someone without an Earth background, or would be plain insensitive to tell to Raven specifically. But still...

"Oh, time fer another one of yer stories?" The fire snapped, a few sparks rising up and into my peripheral vision. I still stared at the moon, our celestial hourglass. "What's it gonna be this time? More adventures, or weird futures, or maybe another ghost story?"

I closed my eyes, resigned to the story that was clamoring to the forefront of my mind. "...Once upon a time, there was a man who served in the army. He had made a distinguished career out of it, but chose to resign. When asked why, he told his superiors that he was afraid that he was beginning to enjoy the killing too much. Rather than risk losing himself and his humanity, he chose to retire and live on a farm with his wife and young son."

Raven quieted, apparently at a loss from this odd start. I wasn't sure how much he, as a knight, might relate to this. Without any input from him, I opened my eyes and let them wander across the stars as I continued. "He was happy, his wife was happy, his son was happy. Farm work was hard but fulfilling. His wife gave birth to twins. They took joy from just being together, without the fear that a war could take him away from them forever.

"Then, while he was out hunting, a band of thugs came to rob the farm."

Brave Vesperia glittered. A log in the fire shifted.

"When he came home, the man found his wife and children had been murdered, their home ransacked, and everything of value stolen. The loss of his home and possessions he could have accepted, but the loss of his family filled him with implacable rage and hatred.

"He hunted down each of the men that had been members of that party, made them each suffer, and killed them brutally. Some took him years to find, about twenty all told, and had even set up happy lives of their own. But in the end, find them he did, and they all died at his hand."

I had to pause and catch my breath, sipping from my canteen. Raven was still quiet, and I realized I wasn't used to telling a story uninterrupted like this. Usually there were more people listening, and somebody would have had a comment or question by this point.

"The man knew he had crossed that point he'd feared before, and could not return. He became an assassin, a killer for hire, and was a damned good one. He held onto some of his principles, but didn't fool himself by calling himself anything but a murderer.

"Years came and went. He became well known for beating the odds and getting the job done. His talents were even called on to save kingdoms and peoples from falling to crazed despots and men steeped in evil." I did not know the particulars of those stories, barely remembering what was mentioned about any of them in the book. I should've looked for more by that author while I had the chance...

"Finally an ironic job was given to him. He was tasked to guard the very son of a king he had killed. The king had been a good man who had fallen prey to evil magics years before, and whose death was necessary to save his kingdom. The king's spirit was at peace with his end.

"But the young prince did not appreciate having to rely on his father's killer, even if he saw the necessity. And the assassin did indeed save his life on more than one occasion. He even saved others, a priestess and what remained of her people, who were fleeing a terrible fate of slavery in another world. A world like their own but different. That the assassin would try so hard to save people threw the young prince into an even greater turmoil inside."

I paused my narrative again, still nothing from Raven. "In a moment of anger, the young prince shot the assassin with a crossbow. He had not meant to, and because it was an accident the assassin did not react in time. He knew the boy was no killer, and that's why the boy was able to kill him."

"What?" Raven finally broke in. "Well, that's a fine tale, ending with the main character dyin' like that."

"Ah," I smiled, glad for the response, "but it's not the end."

"What else can there be after death?" There was an odd note to Raven's voice, both wistful and bitter. And this was why I hadn't wanted to tell Raven this story. Eyes shut once more, I told myself I wouldn't get emotional about the next parts.

"The priestess had been witness to the scene. She rushed to the assassin in the hopes that she could save him. To her eyes that had seen so much death, it was already hopeless. But the young prince had little such experience. With a spell she forced the blood in the assassin's body to move, fooling it into believing itself alive even though the heart no longer beat in his chest."

I felt terrible. There was a gritty noise, as if Raven had shifted uncomfortably in place on the sand.

"The assassin woke, puzzled that he should be alive, and reassured the boy prince that he was alright and held no grudge. But he already knew it was a sham. From talking with the priestess he learned his time was limited. It could be as little as a few hours before his walking corpse fell lifeless again.

"With this knowledge, he knew there was only one thing to do. He left the prince with new guardians, and sought out the sorcerer that had been aiming for the prince's life. When he confronted the evil man, the sorcerer summoned a demon to slay the assassin for him." That had been a very smug moment for me. I had seen, clear as crystal, how this would turn out from chapters away. It was still very satisfying to read.

"Demons are cunning and malicious, always seeking loopholes in order to harm whoever summons and control them. If the spell is broken or their master's command is impossible to fulfill, the summoning backfires and the demon kills them. And the arrogant summoner commanded his demon, 'kill this man.'

"But the assassin was already dead, and while asking, 'how many times can a man die?' with a laugh the demon turned on his summoner and dragged him down to hell."

"Damn..." Raven let that sink in, "Not a good way ta go."

I nodded, "Demons are never interested in quick, painless death." And here came the part that had really stood out in my mind, what had made these bare bones of a story unforgettable, even as the meat was lost in the jumble of stories kept in my head. "And it would soon be time for the assassin to truly die.

"He returned to the priestess, and in her compassion and empathy she gave him a gift. She sent him to another world, just like his own, and to just a short time before his wife and children had been murdered.

"When the robbers descended on the farm and began threatening his wife, the assassin came. The leader of the robbers demanded to know who he was, what he wanted. 'I know you,' said the assassin, 'there is no redeeming you,' and in a single blow killed him without mercy. The same for the second in command, who tried to strike out at the assassin in retaliation.

"And then he turned on the rest of the robbers, 'For some of you, there is hope,' he told them. One by one, he named all of them, and gave predictions of what would happen to each in the coming years. Many included words along the lines of, 'if you do not stop now, this woman's husband will find you in this many years, and kill you in this way'. And it was chilling because he said the words as plain truth.

"He pointed out some men, and told them to return to their hometowns and actually _ask_ that girl's hand in marriage. Told one to take a certain fork in the rode and help the widow he'd meet. She would be wealthy, and he'd live his life in happiness. He spoke of men fulfilling their dreams, having successful businesses, meeting women they could love. And told them that, if they were to kill the woman or children before them, they would have signed their own death sentences and live in fear as they heard about their comrades dying one by one.

"The robbers turned as one and fled, leaving their fallen behind. And the assassin collapsed. The wife rushed to him, thinking to help him in some way. She did not recognize him as he was much older than the man she knew as her husband, but she thought there was something familiar about him. The assassin died in her arms, finally at peace, just as his younger self returned home."

There was silence in which I could hear the crackle and popping of flames as the wood shifted. "I'm not sure I understood all of that," Raven admitted slowly. "Does that qualify as a happy ending?"

I shrugged. "Probably not, but for the assassin it was more than he could expect. Not many people really get to live happily ever after. It's actually depressingly unlikely." _The assassin had a hard life, one filled with mistakes and the hatred of others. But at the end he was able to use that life of his to ensure another version of himself wouldn't have to suffer his greatest regret. Perhaps that's enough. _I laced my fingers together and stretched my arms skyward, "But even if it isn't perfect, life can still be worth it. If you look at it in the right light."

"Heh, not sure if that should be called pessimistic or not," Raven chuckled. "Doesn't seem like you."

"Au contraire," I slipped in a bit of French without thinking, and couldn't be bothered to worry about him noticing, not while I was still caught up in the story and the night around me. "It's very much like me. Put the bigger picture into perspective instead of trying to hide from it. I'm only one single thread in the whole weave, but my existence is just as important as any other thread. The world follows its own path, and even if we're bumbling around and screwing things up all the time, it's still rolling towards the end it's meant for.

"Thinking like that all the time, it's normal to just live to enjoy the moment, and let the good and the bad come when they will."

"I don't think normal describes a word that just came out of your mouth..." I giggled at that. "Seriously!" he protested, "Did ya sneak somethin' stronger along in one of the canteens? It sounds like you've been holdin' out on me!"

"Ha! I need no paltry mortal liquor!" I declared haughtily. Falling back so that I was lying on the sand, lifting my arms into the air above me, I spread my hands wide as if showing off the sky of cold shining stars and the gibbous moon. "I need only the ambrosia of the cosmos to show me the answers to Life! The Universe! And Everything!"

"Sounds like some pretty strong stuff ya got there."

In a loud whisper, I confided, "The answer is forty-two, you know."

"Okay, whatever that stuff is? Ya need to stop drinkin' it." Another spat of giggles from me, which died away and left silence again. Until- "Because the answer to all o' that is _obviously_ my rugged, manly charm."

"Blasphemy!" I gasped, and we both laughed loud in the still desert night.

x x x

_I was trying to push the fog back again. It was surprising how much effort it was taking. And all I got to show for it was more grass in the mass of shadow and mist. It kept trying to rush forward and pull me under again, like last time, but that no longer caught me by surprise._

_The Voice was starting to sound exasperated with me. "You're starting to become more trouble than you're worth."_

_And I lost the fight against the fog once more._

x x x

There was nothing for it but to wait. Which sucked, because when you're sitting around and waiting it's hard not to fall asleep. And my body was _demanding_ I get more rest, since I'd only gotten a few hours in during the past two-three?-days. Sleep wasn't all that appealing, what with all the disquieting dreams and the occasional flashes of blood and death I'd see against the darkness of my closed eyes.

Raven and I couldn't go haring off into the desert on our own or it would take ages before both groups stumbled across each other. So we had to sit tight until the others made their roundabout way to the oasis.

I hadn't found myself in a position of sitting around with nothing constructive to do since we were on the _Fiertia_, and at least then I had the knowledge that the ship was making progress. But sitting in a giant sandbox and waiting felt like I was wasting precious time.

Not that Raven seemed to mind. Just like on the ship the archer was happily snoozing away.

I briefly entertained the thought of throwing a bit of sand in his open, _snoring_ mouth.

While contemplating how much sand would be safe before he'd be in danger of choking or suffocating (purely academic interest here!) I found myself looking absently in the direction of the spring.

_Hell, why not another round?_

On and off since my dreams the night before, I'd been trying to practice working aer more. I wasn't crazy about going back to sleep and having more dreams, after all. Sitting on the edge with my bare feet cooling in the water, I closed my eyes and tried feeling for the threads of aer Rita had brought to my attention before in Mantaic. There was an abundance of the silk smooth water element. That had seemed a good place to start practice before, and I set back into my pathetic attempts to gather it again. Safer than fire in any case.

Frankly, I doubted I had much talent for the choice element of pyros.

Like before, I first tried to separate the water aer from all the other elements. There was water element...there was earth...there were two that I had trouble categorizing, but guessed were probably dark and light... Warm aer that bordered the line of turning into actual fire... It was like having a very large handful of assorted bird feed, and trying to pick out all but one type of seed. Messy, time consuming, I lost quite a bit of the water threads as well, and when I was finally sure water was all I had in my hand I was positive there was a more efficient method I was missing.

Dropping my 'handful' I tried to think of a better way to start. _Well, best would be if I would only grab the water to begin with. It must be possible to do it quickly, or magic would be terribly unsuited for combat use. And I know firsthand that it is formidable in a fight_. Closing my eyes to shut out distractions, I tried to concentrate on the threads of aer without getting hung up on the physical environment.

A spark of insight, _Hmm, actually, that might have something to do with it_. I tried to follow the line of thought that was trying to escape from me. _Aer makes up everything in this world, but it has to be, like, in different consistencies or something to make different things. Something besides elements. Otherwise, why would dense aer hurt people when theoretically their own bodies are just as dense concentrations of aer? Because, from what I've seen, harmful aer is always in a gaseous or liquid form. And later they make a point of saying solidified aer is safe. Yeah, still don't get that._

_...That's whirling out of control. But basically, there might be differences other than element. If it were something like...different points on a light spectrum or radio wave frequencies, maybe_...

Gathering aer was an exercise of thought, will, and blastia on the less tangible aspects of my surroundings. What if instead of consciously trying to pick out water from earth and what not, I just willed my 'hands' would pick up only water?

It was a weird thought, I wasn't entirely sure I understood it myself, but figured it was worth trying. Reaching out mentally (or spiritually, or blastia-ly, or whatever) again, making physical gestures to help convince myself I was doing something, I gathered the silk threads to me. _Only water, only water, only water..._ I imagined my metaphorical 'hands' passing through the other elements without touching them, and picking up only water. At first, my 'hands' passed through everything, but eventually began scraping up bits of water threads in their passes, and then even more. Once I had a nice bundle in my lab (so to speak) I realized I had no clue what to do with any of it.

"Ah, um, Champagne?" I weakly tried while remembering one of Rita's basic level spells. Of course, just saying a name isn't all it takes to cast a spell or use an arte. They were more like a focusing technique or intimidation attempt, really. Even just a side effect of spending too much time with people who always call out their attack names.

My confusion over what to do made my focus waver, the jumbled threads of aer seemed to spasm as they tried to escape and return to their natural currents. I grabbed at them tighter in reflex.

A miniature geyser of water spouted up before coming back down in a brief rain on my head.

"Well..." I brushed damp hair from my eyes, "I guess that's something."

That was more or less the best result I got from my magic practice. I could separate water from the other elements, though I never managed to get as much as that first time again. Apparently a fluke, or I hadn't mastered the touch quite right... Once I'd had my fill of solo practice I switched over to my other field of study and pulled my dao manual from my bag.

Settling myself against a palm tree as comfortably as I could, I flipped through the pages to find more basic exercises and try to determine if I could pull off any of the trickier moves. I pored over the step by step instructions and diagrams, trying to visualize myself acting these moves out. There was a lot of information to absorb. I had to reread a lot of it several times before understanding exactly what was being described, and it didn't help that my eyes kept getting heavy.

When I finally set the book down with a sigh I noted the sun had traveled across a large chunk of the sky. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to massage away my fatigue and building headache. _Maybe if I got up and moved around I'd wake up a bit more thoroughly..._

From out in the sands came a weird sound. I frowned, trying to place it. _Not Phaeroh...or that weird monster we're supposed to fight soon (shit, almost forgot about that thing)... Hey, isn't it getting louder?_ It was, and I was able to pick out a heat obscured blob moving down a sand dune.

"-eeeEE**E**_**AAH!**_"

The blob resolved itself into Karol and pelted past me to a splashing halt in the water.

"...Doppler effect," I stated mildly to myself. Rita blew past seconds later. She wasn't shrieking madly like our youngest member, but would have probably blasted to ashes anything unfortunate enough to get in her way.

Shaking my head a little, but not really blaming them, I walked over to the dune they'd come over. I was about halfway up it when I saw the others crest the top. Cheerily I waved at them. Other than a responding wave from the ever-unflappable Judith, they didn't really acknowledge me. Though Estelle might have _tried _to raise her hand from courtly conditioning but failed to pull it off.

Once they'd reached my position I joined them in their slower but still enthusiastic beeline towards the water. "How bad was it?" I asked.

Blandly, Yuri said, "Not fun."

"We're almost out of water, and still haven't managed to find Alph and Layla's parents," Estelle filled in. "And no sigh of Phaeroh, though we thought we heard him..."

At the spring, where Karol and Rita were already happily wallowing in the cooler waters, they all drank gratefully. The princess filled her canteen and drank from that while Yuri simply gulped water from his cupped hand. Judith, when I looked to see, was industriously filling all the canteens.

Sitting back on his heels, Yuri looked around. Raven was still fast asleep in his shady spot and there was nothing else of particular interest around. "So Repede's still back in town?" _Ah_.

"Yeah, he's got free room and board at the inn," I grinned wryly. "Lucky dog's getting VIP treatment."

Yuri kinda snorted, kinda laughed, "Good for him." He looked over at Raven's prone form again. "The old man give you any trouble?"

"Yes, loads. His snoring is a more formidable weapon than Rita's magic on a day when her fuse is cut extra short," I reported seriously.

Yuri rolled his eyes, "Don't I know it. Be glad you don't have to regularly share a room with him." He stood up and uncapped his canteen while walking over to where the archer was curled up on his side. Standing over the older man, he nudged a shoulder gently with one foot. "Hey, old man! Up and at 'em!"

Raven snored. Yuri's foot jabbed him a bit harder, "Hey, you don't want to make me do this, do you?"

A grunt, but Raven only rolled over a bit so he was sprawled on his back and snored again.

"Okay, you've been warned." Yuri up-ended the canteen over Raven's head, the stream of water pouring out and splashing over the archer's face and chest. The poor, no longer sleeping man spluttered at the rude awakening as he rolled out of the way.

"Fine way t' say 'llo!" he complained loudly.

"Hello," Yuri said without missing a beat. I had to cover my mouth with a hand to help muffle the laughter I was failing to hold back. "Just thought I'd let you know we'd be leaving as soon as we've taken a quick break."

"And ya couldn't have just waited til we were ready ta go before wakin' me up?" Raven continued to gripe.

"Shut up," Rita told him shortly, though it lost some of the bite as she was still smiling dreamily at the relief brought by the water she was sitting in.

Karol groaned, most likely at the prospect of going out into the open desert again so soon. "It'll be dangerous if we just keep going like this."

"If we turn back now, though, we'll only disappoint those poor children," Judith reminded him, though not unkindly.

"We have to keep looking for them," Estelle said firmly, not allowing any reluctance to slip into her voice. "And we may even find Phaeroh."

Rita nodded, "Yeah, we should keep trying for as long as we can." No one pointed out the irony of her words, when she'd been the one so opposed to this search in the first place. After all, the desert was hot enough without a blazing temper to deal with.

Yuri knelt by the water to refill his canteen. "It shouldn't be a problem to keep going, with this spring here. We won't have to go all the way back to town for a reliable water supply."

"You're right. We've already come this far." Karol seemed a bit shamed by the adults' resolution. Or maybe he thought his display was a lapse in his boss' responsibilities. Not that the rest of us were likely to blame him. I didn't.

The swordsman screwed the cap back on his canteen. "Everyone else filled up their water bottles?" Karol and Rita both looked a bit sheepish, as they'd been too caught up in soaking to remember.

"Here, I filled them for you." Judith handed Karol's bottle back to him, and then held out Rita's. "Here's yours, Rita." Once they took them and thanked her, the krytian returned to the pile of canteens she'd filled and started tying the spare ones back to the bag of desert travel supplies.

_Amazing how sensible she is, when it's easy to think she's just being kinda spacey_.

"So," I started with the air of a person making an announcement. They all looked at me. "You're tired, you're hot, you're thirsty, though probably less of the last two now, and I'd bet you're hungry." I smiled brightly and held up a frying pan and knife, "Late lunch anyone?"

The looks of gratitude at my implied volunteering were all the answer I needed. Though I still made Raven help, since he hadn't done a damn thing all day.

x x x

We'd been out in the desert another night (the moon was truly its final quarter that night) and were well into the next day. I was missing Earth luxuries like functioning air conditioners, functioning air conditioners in moving _cars_, and climate controlled motels. Hell, I'd be satisfied with one of those dinky little palm-sized, battery run fans.

Instead, I was trotting out my well practiced skills at escaping reality (well honed by boring lectures at school) to distract myself. My mind meandered from one topic to another, from books to games to music to tv shows to chinchillas to movies to music again. Yes, chinchillas. And they weren't even the most random thing that came up during that wild train ride. Don't ask.

"Heads up," Yuri alerted us. My attention snapped back to the _fuckin' hot desert_ for the brief time it took me to notice the _fuckin' weird monster_ skirting by in the not-distant-enough distance. Whatever it was, it was really weird. It _looked_ like some kind of bug. Maybe a really huge dragon fly with four legs and less vibrant colors.

It had definitely seen us. Hands went to respective weapons, ready to whip them out if it made any move towards us. Giant gossamer wings buzzed a bit, kicking up a small cloud of sand under it, but not enough to lift it off the ground. I swallowed, gripping Oberon and Gemini Left a bit tighter for reassurance.

But then the wings slowed and stopped. The monster kept walking just out of spell and arrow range, and otherwise ignored us. We only relaxed when it was roughly the size of a cat in the distance.

Judith pouted as she let go of the halberd harnessed to her back. "Drat. I guess we can't always be lucky."

x x x

_**Classic Hits**_

_Karol: Hey, guys?_

_Yuri: What is it, Karol?_

_Karol: Will someone switch places with me? Letha's starting to get kind of weird._

_Rita: Nothing new there._

_Karol: I mean it! She's acting weird and it's starting to scare me._

_Yuri: Why? What's she doing?_

_*Letha enters, moving across the screen and muttering under her breath*_

_Letha: Been through the desert on horse with no name, felt good to get out of the rain... In the desert you can remember your name, 'cause their ain't no one for to give you no pain..._

_*Letha exits*_

_Yuri, Karol & Rita: …_

_Yuri: What's a horse?_

x x x

Somehow, Karol saw them first. "Look over there!" he shouted a bit hoarsely, and then coughed and spat a bit. Sand in the mouth. Judith told him not to take off that face wrap...

Yuri mutely handed Karol his own canteen and then raised a hand to shade his eyes. Squinting, he saw what the Ace had pointed out. "Let's go!"

Other than some sandstone cliffs, I couldn't see what they'd spotted, but I followed faithfully as they led everyone else across the sand at an angle from the direction we'd been going previously. Sure enough, it wasn't long before we practically were stumbling across a pair of bodies in the sand. The sun was nearly directly over head, meaning the nearby cliffs provided no protective shade from its harsh rays. The bodies were partially buried, and for a heart stopping moment I thought they were dead.

Estelle dropped to kneel beside them and cast First Aid without hesitation. One of the bodies groaned. _Oh good, they're alive!_ The one that groaned shifted, and slowly sat up. "Ohh...my wife, where's my wife..." Even in his weakened state, the urgency and alarm were clear in his ragged voice.

"This woman...?" Karol asked, as if not entirely sure the other body was a woman. To be fair, she was wrapped up in similar clothes as us, and without greater familiarity he probably couldn't tell the difference between women and men's clothing. "She's right here," he assured the man. Estelle was already casting another First Aid to give her back some strength. Both of them were struggling to sit up at that point.

The princess' healing artes were a rudimentary treatment, meant more to keep them from dying on our hands within the next minute, so we'd have the time for a better solution. Yuri and Raven supported the couple to the shade Karol and I quickly set up with a tent, and Judith gave them water from the remaining extra canteens, watching with a careful eye to make sure they didn't drink too much all at once.

Dehydrated, sun exposure, overheated, and malnourished. But doing better once we spent a good hour sharing our water supplies and giving them light food from our bags that their stomachs wouldn't just rebel against and throw up. The two were getting livelier with every minute, and once they could speak sentences longer than three words without coughing, they kept thanking us over and over again.

"Thank you so much!"

"We're alive, thanks to you... You're our saviors!"

"Please, it's nothing..." Estelle replied demurely.

"We can relax once you're back home safely," Yuri said. Or tried to say. The man was still talking about how grateful he was.

"I'd like to thank you for saving us...but I'm afraid I don't have anything with me that I could give you..."

"Oh, please," Yuri waved a hand a bit brusquely, "we don't need anything like that."

"Virtue's its own reward, treat others how you want to be treated, yadda yadda yadda..." I mumbled to myself. Not loud enough to be heard by the couple, didn't want to come off as rude. Estelle heard and frowned slightly, which led to Rita elbowing me in the ribs. Ow...

"No, that simply won't do," the man decided. "Please, come to Mantaic so that I can pay you back for what you've done."

"Mantaic...?" Rita looked away from me (she'd been rolling her eyes a bit at how I was rubbing my ribs gingerly) over to the couple.

Judith caught on as well. "Wait, are you the parents of Alph and Layla?"

The wife seem startled to hear her children's names. "Y-yes, yes, we are!" Her hand covered her mouth while hugging herself with her other arm, as if wishing she had them in her arms. "Did you see our children back in Mantaic...?"

"We found them out in-" Karol started, but was interrupted by Estelle.

"Yes, we met them there." The Ace seemed confused, but Raven leaned over and muttered something in his ear. Probably along the lines of 'don't make the parents worry more than they need to' since the children were safe at home.

Karol's eyes widened a bit, and then he nodded. "They were worried about their mom and dad," he did say.

"They asked us to come and look for you," Judith told them, holding out the marble Alph had given her. Recognition dawned in both of their faces.

"Oh... This is terrible," the father moaned. "We have to go back to them..." He tried to leave through the tent flap, his wife at his heels, but Judith slipped in front of them and stood with hands on hips.

"Don't be so hasty. Do you think you two can go back by yourselves?"

The man looked angered at first, but the krytian's level stare made him drop his head rather than meet her eyes. "No, I guess...we can't..." At his own admission, his hands clenched at his sides.

"Then just calm down for now," Raven soothed. I was impressed. There was just the right amount of authority in his tone, balanced with understanding. Well, there must be good reasons why the Schwann Brigade respect their leader even when they hardly see him.

At that moment we heard a long, trilling cry from out in the desert. Everyone stood as if frozen, heads turned in the same direction as if we could see through the canvas wall. Honestly, based on how loud the call had been it wouldn't be too surprising if we saw a monster's shadow descending on us.

"A bird..." the man whispered, surprise momentarily taking his mind from the issue of his children, "in this desert?"

"It sounds close..." Karol added.

Raven nodded slightly, "Sounds like it came from just up ahead."

"So we'll get to meet him..." Yuri murmured, taut with anticipation and an impatience to get _out_ there, "it's about time. I was about to shrivel up in this heat."

When I looked curiously at Judith, her head was tilted in a listening position. But she looked puzzled by something. _Could she already have realized it's not Phaeroh? Maybe she tried that krytian telepathic thing and didn't get any answer_.

There was no question what we were going to do next. We'd come so far looking for Phaeroh, we had to go and see if we'd finally found him now that we were so close. Alph and Layla's parents would simply have to tag along for the ride. Too bad only I, and maybe Judith, knew it was a Red Herring.

_I wonder if that's why Phaeroh made it. I'm pretty sure it was implied that he made it... Maybe it was to throw us and the knights off his trail_.

Karol quickly had the tent collapsed again, needing very little of my help actually, and we were off in the direction of the bird-like cry. The only thing slowing our pace was that we had to consider the weakened couple, who weren't accustomed to monster hunting even on their best days.

We'd just entered an area where sandstone swept up in cliffs on either side of us so that we were caught in a narrow valley of sorts. _A bottleneck_, I thought,_ a bad place to get ambushed, and maybe a good place to hold off an army if you know how_.

The trill came again. "Something isn't right..." Judith stopped and looked around, feet spreading apart to plant firmly in the sand. "Be on your guard."

Suddenly there was another cry overlaying the bird one, and it made me think of something trying to howl underwater.

"That's not Phaeroh..." Estelle realized.

Yuri eased into a ready stance of his own. "Yeah... There's something different about that voice."

I blinked, thinking the heat was affecting my vision when I saw a black spot in the air above and just ahead of us. But it didn't go away, and was getting bigger. "H-hey!" Karol squawked, noticing it too.

The black spot wasn't getting closer, it was expanding rapidly until it looked like a vortex straight out of a sci-fi. A bit of electricity seemed to lick at its edges and then it flashed. When the sudden light cleared, it left a floating blob like thing in the shape of a...a manta ray was all I could compare it to. But it was bluish, transparent, and globs of dark shadowy substance that kept emerging from its body to arc through the air before reentering its amorphous mass.

"What the?" Rita recoiled in revulsion, "It's disgusting!"

"Biology class abomination," I grunted. "Almost as nasty as the daphnia." Water flea. Goddamned nasty thing to look at with a microscope (I saw the friggin' thing's _heart_ beating! Or something was moving in it...).

"I've never seen a monster like that..." Karol's voice cracked in horror.

Judith's voice was cool, "That's not a monster."

"If it's not a monster, what the hell is it?" Raven demanded, voice high and panicky. There was no chance for Judith to answer, if she _had_ the answer, because the monster finished doing...whatever it was doing floating there, and, uh, swam through the air straight at us.

"Damn, looks like we have no choice," Yuri flung the sheath off his sword and spared a single glance back at our tag-alongs. "Out of the way, you two!"

Rita shot off a blast of fire into the monster's face, or where its face would be if it had one, more to distract it than anything else. It gave the couple time to retreat further back down the neck of our sand rock trap. It bothered me that the monster didn't make any noise or reaction of pain at all.

_Goddamn, I bet this is the thing that took out the Crocodile Hunter_.

x x x_  
_

_Hero in the Shadows_ by David Gemmell. I AM SORRY, SIR, FOR CUTTING YOUR WONDERFUL STORY INTO SUCH A CRUDE, SHORTENED VERSION. Seriously, there was a lot more going on in that book. Letha was just telling the parts that struck the strongest chord in me. The impact is so much more amazing with the actual dialogue...

Medusa Butterfly, exit stage right. Judith is disappointed.

Classic Hits. Got the idea when I heard the song "Horse With No Name" playing on the radio at work. Also played with the idea of her reciting lines from "We Three Kings" but some people don't are adamantly against Christmas carols out of season. It was fun. (Though I thought the line was "_can't_ remember your name" until I looked it up. That would make more sense to me...)


	44. Chapter 44: For a Price

Anybody else occasionally dig up old classics like Disney movies for nostalgia? I was in the mood for Disney music, and then it turned into the need to watch some of the movies. I realized something. Mulan's father Fa Zhou is Ludwig. Totally.

And Mushu's first meeting with Mulan: "My powers are beyond your mortal imagination! For instance, my eyes can see straight through your armor!" *Looks down at her chest, Mulan slaps him.* Me: RAVEN MOMENT!

Ahh, hope all my Canadian readers had a good Canada Day. That's the first of July, right? And to all my American readers, happy Fourth of July! (I'm excited, my town puts a lot of money towards fireworks. Nearly a solid hour of displays!)

Random chatter over with now. There's a weird part in the narrative in this chapter. I debated just cutting it and skipping to the next part, but I went with it anyway. I hope nobody gets too annoyed by it...I actually did while writing it. If anyone thinks it was bad move, let me know? I doubt I'd have a need to do it again, but I'd like to know if it was too confusing, or if it's not as bad as I'm wondering it might be.

Angelic:

I can forgive weird names if I like the story or gameplay. I can't forgive any failings in plot or technical set up, though.

Raven references are so much fun to make! Especially when he doesn't realize she _knows_ what she's saying! Though honestly, I tried to think of something else to use, since Letha isn't heartless. But then again, she has a wicked streak, so it's not unbelievable that she went ahead with it instead of just saying "nevermind" when she couldn't think of anything else.

AER COMPLICATIONS. More of me winging it, bullshitting it, and hoping enough people kinda get it to make it not a total waste of time. Prepare for a bit more weird aer stuff in this one...

Some Bloke:

You failed, I'm laughing. Because of "Raven love" and the lampshaded attempt to not make me laugh. The story would not be what it is today if not for humor and Raven's perfectly suited existence for compounding this humor. And he isn't _just_ about being funny either! He's has so much depth that I keep wanting to poke at! *Ahem* Now let's move on before that starts to sound weird.

And oh hey, somebody else who's played Grandia! Of the three I played I actually preferred the first one (despite its plot and hero being the most childish, you could say), but number two has its good points. I've considered setting another fairy abduction skit in one, but that's just a thought.

x x x

Chapter 44: For a Price

x x x

The fight had not been going well so far. The Manta had rushed right at us despite Rita's fireball and the katana and halberd Yuri and Judith already had leveled at it. They didn't even have the time to do anything, it practically threw itself on their weapons for them. The blades sank into it's amoeba like body, but it continued bulling ahead and knocked over both swordsman and krytian.

It was clear that the Manta was trying to body slam them, but the butt of Judith's halberd got jammed into the ground, causing the blade to impale itself even deeper into the bloblike body. It finally showed a pained reaction, pulling back and away before it managed to crush them (or, I guess, smother them with its bulk). Judith had to grab onto her weapon tight to keep it from getting carried off with the monster. Or rather, the not-monster according to Judith.

Yuri pushed himself up onto one knee. "Damn," he massaged the wrist of his sword arm briefly, as if it had been injured trying to hold onto his katana. "At least it can be hurt, but this isn't going to be easy."

He and Judith were still in a disadvantageous position, so I resolutely gripped Oberon and Gemini Left as I rushed the monster from the side. Leading with a Star Stroke attack, I stabbed with Gemini once in close. My dagger sank into it easily, though the outer membrane was tough enough that it stopped the blade before my hand could follow it inside.

Despite being made of something closely related to jelly in consistency, the Manta's tail stung like a whip when it lashed across my face. I yelped in pain, falling back and instinctively lifting a hand to the throbbing welt it had raised on my face, even though it was too late to guard. _Close...an inch higher and I'd be blind..._

My eyes were watering from the smack to the face (DAMN THING BITCH SLAPPED ME) and couldn't see clearly yet. A hand grabbed me roughly around my upper arm and dragged me back. The air I could feel forcefully displaced from in front of me was enough to realize it had struck in my direction again.

Blinking furiously, when my sight was back I realized I was just behind Raven, who was firing off arrows into the monster. "Ya still got yer head on straight?"

"Uh yeah, thanks..." I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes once more, and then was ready to fight again. Yuri and Judith had recovered, and with support from Raven and Estelle were landing solid hits. Karol, being low to the ground, was able to attack from underneath the monster with his axe in blows that should be devastating in such a normally vulnerable area.

It didn't look like any of it was doing jack shit, though.

"Urgh! I'll do it!" Rita snapped while her scroll whipped around and around, drawing her formula in the air. For her to be announcing her intentions like that meant it was going to be something big the rest of us should look out for. And knowing what to look for, I could tell she was pulling in a large quantity of fire element aer. "O incandescent locus, annihilate the vulgar before me! Spiral Flare!"

A tornado of fire was released from the formula and blazed towards the Manta. It didn't even bother trying to escape. When the fire cleared it barely even looked the worse for the wear.

"Wh-what?" Rita gasped, unable to accept that a spell she'd put so much juice into had so little effect. But she'd attracted the Manta's attention. Facing her, a gaping hole of a mouth yawned open and began sucking at the air. It was drawing so much energy towards it that it wasn't even necessary to use my blastia to sense the change in aer flow. Cursing, Yuri grabbed Rita by the shoulder and shoved her down to the ground, taking cover at the same time and even partially shielding the less durable mage himself. He was just in time.

The red blast of energy, as wide around as I was tall, nearly clipped their backs as it passed over them. It smashed into one of the sandstone walls of the ravine, causing it to fragment and drop large chunks. When the falling rubble and sand cleared, the wall had a fresh gouge at least a foot deep. Estelle gasped 'Oh my' while Karol squeaked fearfully. I was letting loose a string of colorful swears in my mind as my voice didn't actually want to work. There was a unanimous, unspoken decision to not let the Manta do that again.

_Weapons aren't very effective, other than when Judith's halberd seemed to hurt it, but spells..._ I jumped aside to avoid a barrage of smaller blasts of energy, oddly resembling star fish. _Maybe we just need to use the right element of spells? Fire didn't seem to phase it at all, and if this were Final Fantasy..._

"Rita!" I shouted, "Try water!"

"What? What makes you think that'll do any better?" But Rita was already preparing a formula, a blue shining circle array at her feet. "O mother praised for her indigo life," I missed the next part as the Manta took a swing at me with its arm like (or I suppose I should call them wing like) appendages. But then I heard her call out, "Aqua Laser!"

The sand under the floating blob monster glowed blue for a moment, then water gushed straight up from underneath and stabbed into its belly. It gave a weird moan and shudder, the most encouraging sign yet.

Then its hole of a mouth opened again (which freaked me out, thinking we'd get another huge red blast) and a large sphere (a nucleus would be an apt description) rose out. There was a small cut in it that, with a flash of insight, I realized must have come from the tip of Judith's halberd.

The nucleus hovered in the air before the monster's open mouth and then, like the series of ripples you get when you toss a rock into a pond, darkness poured out of it in waves. They quickly overtook all of us, and I gave an involuntary cry thinking it was an attack, but it kept on until as far as I could see, everything was as dark as night. No, darker, there were no stars or moon.

"This can't be good..." I heard Raven say from somewhere nearby, and had to agree.

Several small flashes of light were all that alerted me, and I had a split second to react. Diving to the left I still wasn't fast enough to entirely dodge another stream of the starfish missiles. A few caught my right side, apparently having just passed through the space between my body and arm. I felt a little faint just thinking how close I had been to taking a direct hit, or just having my arm riddled with stars.

"Ugh! Estelle! Rita! Can you two do something about this?" Yuri shouted from somewhere in the dark.

"Photon!" The light from Estelle's attack lasted for a brief span of time, but it was enough for us all to temporarily get our bearings.

Rita had already been preparing, and the moment she could see her target again she cast her spell. "Aqua Laser!" To our shock the monster barely reacted at all to the water, simply shook it off and tried to clout Rita in the head with an 'arm' and was barely stopped in time by Karol's axe knocking it off course. "What? But it worked before!"

I had sent another Star Stroke in the Manta's direction, not wanting to get too close to it when the light wouldn't last. _In a lot of games, something like this would mean it was a monster that switched elemental attributes. Those are a pain..._ It seemed likely that that was the case we were dealing with, but I was a hundred percent sure, and in any case didn't know how to explain my reasoning to the others. Without any time to really think my strategy through, and with the fear of having that thing pop out of the dark at any time, I decided to try an experiment.

There were occasional bursts of light from the others using their artes. The most beneficial for seeing were Judith's moon based techniques. The next time there was a glow of pale light off her halberd, I marked where the Manta's position was and rushed towards it. _If water is no longer the elemental weakness, then game logic would dictate-_

"Blazing Afterimage!" I swung Oberon through the downwards diagonal that I typically would charge with aer, but this time I strove to fill the blade with only fire elemental aer. My control slipped, and a miscellaneous mix still made its way in, but flame was the predominate element. The blade of my dao flared with small licking flames as it slashed through the Manta's membranous hide.

My flames weren't nearly as large or strong as those Rita could whip up in her sleep (thank God I didn't know that from personal experience, but First Strike demonstrated how destructive that could be), but I had apparently guessed right about the elemental thing. It gave another howling moan, terribly eerie to hear in the dark, and then suddenly all the darkness got sucked right back into its nucleus just before that retreated into its mouth again.

"Hey!" Yuri shouted to get everyone's attention. "Get it to spit that core out again!"

"Aye aye, sir!" I responded briskly. "Rita!" I scrambled over to the younger mage. "This time it has to be water-"

"I got it already!" she cut me off with, having figured out what I knew in her own way. "But there's not much water element here!" And when I thought to look, I realized she was right. It must have taken a lot of effort to gather enough for two shots of Aqua Laser, and what had been used for that was largely dispersed across the field. "Gather what you can, and I'll use it for one more spell!" she ordered.

Having heard our plan, the others concentrated on keeping the monster from distracting us. At one point it tried to make another huge energy blast, but simultaneous attacks from Judith and Karol from above and below were just enough to distract it.

"Rita..." I tried to tell her I'd gathered as much of the water aer as I could without losing my focus or the silk like threads. She understood, and grabbed my hand while using the other to trace another formula circle. I felt the cool silk aer flow through my control into hers, and then she was casting Splash.

The effort was draining, and when the Manta opened its maw to spit out its nucleus and the wave of shadows again I felt dispirited. I didn't want to have to fight in the dark again...

"Judy!" Yuri called, and the krityan leaped into the air.

"Crescent Moon!" Her halberd cut the sphere nearly in half. "Luna Rondo!" The core was completely severed, and then shattered. It hadn't yet brought a false night, so we were left to finish the fight in the light of day.

The Manta actually drooped in the air, belly nearly touching the sand, and looked much weakened by the loss. Yuri and Estelle both leaped forward, Estelle's sword cutting in up to the hilt while Yuri's katana spun multiple attacks across its 'face'.

And that was it. With one more of its water howls, the Manta Ray monster simply...faded. As if it had evaporated, or never even existed.

Everyone was panting for breath after the punishing effort of fighting the monster. In full desert travel garb, during the heat of day no less (never mind that it briefly hadn't been day, it had still been hot). I fumbled for my canteen, and then realized it was empty. _Oh, damn, I think that might be my and Rita's fault..._

Yuri was staring at the now unoccupied space in front of us. "It vanished...?"

"H-hold on everyone, I'll heal you right away..." Estelle held her hands as if in prayer, but then looked up as a falling red and gold feather falling from the sky caught her attention. "What's this...?"

Wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, I had to sit for a moment to catch my breath and save energy, staring at the sandy ground without really thinking about it. _Wow, with the immediate threat gone, I really feel like I can barely move_...

"I can't go on..." Karol groaned, and then there was a thud. Followed by another.

"Rita...Karol..." Estelle said weakly. And there was a third thump.

"Hey hey..." I said with a weak laugh, "We can't all be falling asleep out here... Think of the uneven tan lines..." Nobody responded to my halfhearted joke, other than a groan from someone but that was probably because of the heat, or the crash from the loss of adrenaline.

In retrospect, I don't even know just when I passed out.

x x x

_This time. This time for sure I'd clear the fog. I turned my back on the sunset behind me, already more than familiar with it. Pushing the fog back was easier this time, and I was listening for that voice, ready for it to retaliate._

_Swirling gray pushed back further, further, further and uncovering more grass. I was starting to think there was nothing else here besides grass and a waterside sunset. When the grass finally gave way to brown dirt, the surprise made my focus waver and the fog started rolling back in._

_Dismayed, I tried to push it back again, to see what was beyond the grass and the dirt._

"_ENOUGH."_

_A section of the fog twisted in on itself, whirling like a miniature tornado, growing darker and more compact with each spin. Before it even finished forming itself the mass sprang at me. I fell back in horror, as the features rushing towards me became defined and I saw familiar short black hair, cold pale eyes, a scar stretching across a face with a feral grimace leering at me._

_In my shock, I couldn't even scream before his tri-bladed knives slashed at me._

x x x

My eyes flew open. For a single second I was utterly frozen, even my breath stilled in my lungs, as I was still transfixed by that last image of my dream. Gradually it sank in that it was over, I was alive and safe. Jasper couldn't hurt me anymore. Then the shaking set in.

Curling up into a tight ball, I pulled my thin blanket up around my shoulders to hide the world from my sight as I forced myself to take deep, gasping breaths. My trembling eased, my pounding heart slowed, and my mind calmed itself enough to realize I did not remember going to bed.

Sitting up, I let the blanket fall away as I looked around.

The first thing that I noted was that it was a moderately large room with several other beds. The occupants of which were my companions, all looking worse for the wear but healthy overall. As in, not lying in their deathbeds. At some point somebody must have done some healing work on us.

Then I started to wonder why were all put into the same room. And where was this room, anyway?

I smacked my forehead, and cringed as the action brought a minor headache to my attention. _Right, blackouts followed by being rescued by what's-her-face, Khroma. And now we're in Yormgen_. Specifically, the inn. Seemed the set up here was large common rooms to be shared by all guests. Like the way RPGs usually set up inns. I'd known that there actually were places that used to be like that on Earth (cheaper on a traveler's purse), but generally the want for privacy made such establishments rare if they still existed at all. In my neck of the woods, at least.

_Well, I guess it's rare on Terca Lumireis too, but here we have one_.

Sleep wanted to drag me down again. I hadn't gotten a full night's sleep since what happened with Cumore, and even before that I'd been stubbornly trying to pretend that Jasper's end wasn't bothering me. But I didn't want to sleep. I didn't want to go back to those lucid sunset dreams that, honestly, were scaring my with their frequency and that other voice with control over _my_ dreams. I didn't want to risk seeing dream versions of the skeletons in my closet...

I climbed out of bed, because my body wanted so much to lie back down on it, and looked around the room. Everyone was there, including the couple we'd found in the desert. I was the first to wake up. Rubbing my eyes with a fist, I groaned a bit.

_Now what? Sit around and wait for everyone to wake up?_ Hand falling limply to my side again, I stared at the door. _Go out and look around? Maybe I'll find the girl with the key to the apatheia's case, or Duke even..._

The apatheia. If I didn't do something now to save it, Duke would destroy it. And then even if I managed to prevent Belius' death, we'd be short an apatheia to use in helping the entelexeia be reborn as spirits.

_But what can I possibly do now?_

Quietly, I crept forward until I was next to Rita's bed. It didn't take long to find the red case in her bag, which I tucked under my arm and stealthily retreated out of the room with. I nodded to the innkeeper, trying to look casual and not-so furtive. When he looked like he was about to joyously react to one of his unconscious guests waking up, I put a finger to my lips and mouthed 'still sleeping' while pointing at the room. He nodded in understanding and I tiptoed away.

Once outside the inn, I darted off to the edge of Yormgen until I was safely hidden from sight in the copse of trees by the town's entrance. "Okay, now that I've stolen from my teammates, what can I do to justify this act of theft?"

I could just hide the apatheia, let them believe it was lost or stolen. That had two big problems. One, no lesson from Duke on what an apatheia is or demonstration of what Dein Nomos does. And two, I'd be carrying the stolen box around in my bag for who knows how long, and they're bound to notice sooner or later. Like, if it made our magic go haywire again. Or when, way down the road, Rita's like "I need an apatheia!" and I pull it out and go "Here ya go!" Yeah. Not suspicious at all.

Next option, go and ask Duke very nicely not to destroy this one. And then watch him ignore me and destroy it anyway.

Three...there had to be a third option. I couldn't let this opportunity slip by!

"Dammit, if only I could make a copy of this or something!" I growled in frustration. Then blinked, "...A copy?" _Now isn't that an idea... I might not be able to make a copy, but maybe _he_ could_. Even though we didn't have a good track record of graciously accepting to do each other favors.

I pulled the glove off of my left hand (my gloves were still sliced open across the palms, I should buy new ones) and held up the tattoo into the sunlight. _I'm going to hate myself for this very, very soon_. "Oh Nevys the Great. The Wise and Benevolent. This humble worm of a mortal beseeches you to grace her with your presence...Sir." Part of me was hoping he _wouldn't_ hear and _wouldn't_ show up.

"Please, do go on," he practically purred. "Don't let it stop you that we are both fully aware that you don't mean a word of it." Nevys was just off to the side and within a ray of sunlight that lit on him like he was the lead on a stage, gold sparkles winking out one by one as they lazily spiraled down.

_Civil tongue, civil tongue, civil tongue, ci-_ "And yet you come running at false words of praise. Truly dignified of you." _Snap. I can be so freakin' stupid_.

His face darkened with a scowl. "There is nothing keeping me here. I have no reason to hear out whatever paltry request you have this time." The golden sparks were already swirling out from wherever they'd disappeared to.

"Ah! No!" I practically threw myself at his shiny black shoes. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Please don't go yet!"

"Hnph." Gold specks of light fell gently to the grass around my hands, but the black shoes didn't disappear. When I looked up tentatively, I was treated to the unpleasant sight of the fairy narcissist looking down on me with a sneer and folded arms. "Pathetic creature. _Off_."

I scrambled back before he'd enforce the command with a kick. No need to let him add injury to insult. The glare I gave him spoke volumes, but I kept my mouth shut. An act which said just as much as my eyes, and less to my advantage.

Once Nevi had had his fill of feeling superior, he prompted me with, "What did you see fit to bother me with _this_ time?"

"Please, Sir," I ground out. "I wanted to ask if you could make a copy of this box," I indicated the red case sitting on the ground beside me, "and what's inside it." Nevi stared at me, silent and narrowed eyed. "...Please."

"You wish me to make a substitute apatheia for that mortal to destroy," he outlined my basic plan flatly. The smirk on his face mocked me, my planning, and the very vague terms I had couched my request in. Well, come on! I was dealing with a fairy who, for all I knew, might not even know what the aer in this world was! Much less an apatheia.

"Uh, well, yes. If you would," I bowed my head down again, forehead brushing the grass. Only then I realized I was making the same obeisance I would to my aikido instructors. Even down to the proper etiquette for where I placed my hands before my bent knees.

"No."

"What?" My head snapped up and I stared at Nevi, who had turned away and was showing me his arrogant back. I could have grabbed his wings and yanked them off with him like that, but didn't dare so much as a twitch in their direction. Surely he realized that, and was standing so to taunt me. "I'm on my knees and _begging_ you!"

"As is my due," he retorted haughtily. "But your little diversions serve me in no manner. As such, I am under no obligation to expend the magic required to fashion a copy that would fool the mortal and his sword."

Well, his pride was an angle I knew could be worked. "You can't do it...?"

"_Won't_ do it," he bristled while making the distinction. Then recovered himself, and continued coolly, "Instead of running around in circles with these fools, you should be concentrating on your purpose here. I've been growing impatient with the lack of results." A shower of gold sparkles began to fall around him again.

I clumsily flung myself forward and wrapped my arms around his knees from behind. The sparks turned red and he began spitting words in an unfamiliar language (probably fairy profanities). "Please! I'll try harder! Can't you please do something?" Fortunately the wild beating of his butterfly like wings did little more than buffet my head slightly, no actual pain.

After several more choice words, a few attempts to kick me lose or pry me off, and continuous babbling from me, Nevi finally gave in. "Very well! Cease at once, leech, and I'll see what I can do."

Letting go, I backed away once again and sat cross legged, hands on knees and politely not making a peep. Nevi took his time fixing his clothes and checking his wings to see if they were damaged at all. I was starting to get anxious, it couldn't be much longer before the others started waking up, but I held my peace.

Finally Nevi was ready to talk business. "You," he started coldly (colder than before, near frigid really), "will have to pay a price."

"What kind of price?" I asked warily.

"To make a forgery that even that enchanted sword will take for authentic, we will need to infuse my magic with actual aer." (Oh, he does know.) "The more we use, the more convincing the facsimile," he explained. "You will serve as the conduit for the aer, and take on the toll working the magics exacts in my place." I frowned at that, but he scoffed at me. "I've already been pressing my limits with the numerous facets of our real work, and not merely the aspects that involve you. I simply cannot allow this to wear down me or my resources. It is a small price to pay on your part, for something you have so debased yourself."

"Alright," I agreed slowly. "Is that all?"

"All that you will notice. Close your eyes." He reached out to rest the tips of his fingers on my forehead and eyelids. Immediately I felt a massive surge of aer rising up through me, all concentrated to the points where his fingers contacted my skin. It was a bit like when I'd helped Rita earlier, but the intensity was something else entirely. The crushing, tight pain in my chest made me gasp just to breathe and I could feel a pounding headache taking root in my skull. My left hand began to burn, then grew achingly cold.

The flow of aer through me slowed and then ceased, leaving me feeling empty and as exhausted as if I'd been in a running fight all day. I slumped, forcing my eyes to open when Nevi's touch withdrew. They were drawn to the large hunk of crystal in his hand.

It was a pale green that one would associate with mint (on Earth, at least, with our color coded artificial flavors). He raised it for his own inspection, and I saw that the different angle the light was now shining through it gave it a hint of blue. "'s the wrong color," I slurred, jaw not wanting to cooperate.

"Of no matter," he dismissed. "None of your comrades know the appearance as of yet, or even what lies inside the box." _Oh yeah. True_. I watched as he passed a hand over the crystal and a red box appeared around it, identical to the one Rita and Estelle had been carrying all over the continent. _Hope the girl's key works on this one just the same_.

"Done," Nevi decided, and even considering he'd been against helping me he seemed quite pleased with himself. When he finally looked over at me, it was like an afterthought. "I suppose you want me to safeguard the original, to ensure your deception is not discovered."

"Um, yes, if you would..." I found myself blinking repeatedly. Lightheadedness was starting to make my head spin. It was hard to remember what I was supposed to be doing, or worrying about. "I think I'll go back to bed now..."_ Why didn't I want to sleep before? I dunno anymore..._ I stood, intending to return to the inn with the substitute crystal.

The trees all began to spin madly around me, my vision tunneled, and I was barely aware of lying on my back with Nevi's voice in my ears. "Even serendipity has its drawbacks."

x x x

"_Hey, shouldn't she have woken up by now?"_

"_Maybe she's sick?"_

_"Do you think it's aer sickness again?"_

"_Could be..."_

_It was disorienting. Voices seemed to come from two directions at the same time. As if they were a distance away, and at the same time all around me._

"_I don't think she got a lot of rest last night. She seemed to be having nightmares."_

"_Then maybe she just needs more sleep?"_

"_Looks like. Let's leave her alone for awhile."_

_A door closing across the room and right next to me. Footsteps...muffled and quickly passing beyond hearing, as well as all around me. That shouldn't be possible._

_It occurred to me that I hadn't tried opening my eyes or moving yet. So I tried. My limbs were sluggish, objecting with dull pain to the movements, so I soon gave up. Cracked my eyes open, just the smallest bit to see that I was in the inn. It was all as blurred and vague like when I'm half asleep, checking the time before rolling over and dropping off again. But even though I could see, there was also an odd impression of not seeing, of everything being dark._

_I closed my eyes again, listening to the footsteps that weren't really in the room with me. It was probably another half awake dream._

"_Oh, that's right!" I identified the dream voice as Estelle. "Everyone, look this." The footsteps stopped. With nothing else to listen to, I waited to see if they'd speak more._

"_What's that?" Yuri..._

"_The monster that attacked us in the desert dropped it." Estelle..._

"_I didn't see any feathers on that thing..." And Rita..._

"_That's one of Phaeroh's feathers." Judith..._

_Muffled little noises, like people shifting around. "But why would that monster have one of Phaeroh's feathers...?" Estelle..._

"_Hmm..." Judith..._

"_Man, there's so much we don't know..." Karol..._

_The creak of a door opening and then swinging shut again. "Welcome back." Judith..._

"_And just why was it up ta me ta go trompin' off on a recon mission?" Raven..._

"_If I'd gone, this sweet young lady would've been all alone with you. That's far too unsafe." Judith...and very true._

"_Unsafe? You can't possibly mean me?" Raven... "Hey, we're still missin' someone."_

"_Letha isn't awake yet. We thought it'd be better not to wake her up." Estelle..._

"_That so... Probably fer the best. I don't think she got more than a few hours o' shut eye when we were on our own." Raven...how did he know...?_

"_How'd you know that?" Karol..._

"_My boy, there are things ya don't discuss in detail in polite company-" Raven's voice interrupted by a fleshy smack...thank you whoever, probably Rita... "Ow... I just didn't see her sleep much, and the one time I did, she woke up lookin' pale and jumpy."_

"_I wonder if something is bothering her..." Estelle... Would everyone please stop talking about me behind my back? Even if I am apparently just dreaming it. I must be quite a paranoid person to have such a dream. Come to think of it, what had been bothering me? ...Must've been the thing with Jasper and then Cumore...right?_

"_So? Learn anything, Old Man?" Yuri..._

"_It seems we're in Yormgen. You know, that town from the diary on the ghost ship." Raven..._

"_Wait, this is Yormgen?" Estelle..._

"_The town that needed the clear ciel crystal to protect itself from monsters?" Karol..._

"_It makes sense," Rita was saying, but I was losing interest. I knew we were in Yormgen. Sort of. I wondered if the dream would change to something a bit more interesting..._

_There was idle conversation, the sounds of feet walking across creaking floor boards, a door opening and closing with the footsteps switching to the slightly crunchy sound of feet on sandy dirt. Odd dream...usually it should have switched rails to something else already._

_I payed no heed to the small talk among the group, or occasional brief conversations with unfamiliar voice, which were presumably the villagers. None of it really held my interest until an unfamiliar female voice said, "That box..."_

"_Do you know something about this box?" Estelle..._

"_Longchi had it..." The unfamiliar female...she sounded young... "Where did you get it?"_

"_On a ship called the Atherum, my lovely lady." Raven, of course... "Have you head of it?"_

"_Of course! You know about the Atherum too?" The young female, sounding like her excitement was barely restrained._

"_Y-yes. We happened to come across it on the ocean..." Raven, stumbling with his words..._

"_Did you see Longchi?" The female..._

"_And Longchi would be...?" Raven..._

"_Oh, Longchi is my love. ...I'm sorry to suddenly get so personal." The young woman, sounding a bit shy._

"_Your love...damn it..." Raven... Ha ha... "Hey, Karol. Your turn."_

"_You're hopeless..." Karol, mildly exasperated by Raven... "Umm, all that we saw was, uh, the ship itself." And Karol demonstrating tact. Good boy._

"_Oh, I see..." The female, disappointed..._

"_Could I ask your name?" Judith, being sensible..._

"_Oh, my name is Yuefan." The female...Yuefan..._

"_That's the name that was in the diary we found on the Atherum." Estelle..._

"_Do you know about the clear ciel crystal?" Yuri..._

"_They say it has the power to drive back monsters." Rita...with the relish of somebody telling an urban legend..._

"_The sage said it was necessary to make a barrier around the town." Yuefan... "I-is that what's in the box?"_

"_Yes. We came to deliver this box to you." Estelle..._

"_I-I see..." Yuefan...sounding less than enthused about receiving the means for a barrier. But, to be fair, she was hoping the courier would be someone else..._

"_Hey... Is that the key?" Rita... Yuefan was carrying the key? Convenient...or proof of her hopes to be reunited with Longchi soon..._

"_Could I have the box?" Yuefan..._

_There was a grating noise, sounding like it was right in front of me and just above my head, and then a click. Suddenly my vision was filled with light even though my eyes remained closed. Above me was the face of a pretty, dark haired woman in a rectangular space of sky._

_The rectangle of sky moved, and the unfamiliar face was replaced by white hands reaching towards me. In bed I flinched involuntarily, and then there was more light as the hands lifted me up into that patch of sky._

_I was being held by Estelle, as if I wasn't even a tenth her size, and Karol was saying, "Wow... Is this the clear ciel crystal?"_

_...So I was dreaming that I was a crystal? That was a new one..._

"_I guess so..." Rita, frowning at me... They were all crowding around me. If I weren't feeling the detachment of dreaming, I'd probably find cause to complain about having shrunk to the smallest one there._

"_Was anyone else expectin' the color ta be, ya know, a bit different?" Raven..._

"_Didn't really think about it." Yuri..._

"_It looks right to me..." Estelle..._

"_So who's that sage you were talking about earlier?" Raven..._

"_The sage is a great Krityan who came to our town from across the desert." Yuefan... Everyone glanced briefly at Judith._

"_A Krityan...?" Karol...being the most obvious in his Judith directed glance..._

"_Well, creating a barrier is basically creating a blastia." Rita... And then she was off on her favorite subject demonstrating her expertise._

_Everyone listened to her out of interest, politeness, or in Yuefan's case, apologetic befuddlement. I lost interest again as the others joined the blastia topic._

_Why was I dreaming about being a crystal? Maybe something before I fell asleep... What had I been doing?_

_...Oh, right. Making a false crystal with Nevi. He'd said I'd have to pay the price, and the price was an aer attack as bad as any I'd suffered. Something to do with me being a conduit..._

_Wait, was I still connected to the crystal we made? Was I not dreaming at all, but seeing what was happening around it?_

_Woah...an out of body experience...almost... Weird...felt like that time...that time... When I was gassed so dentists could do weird things to my teeth. Damn, I was hoping not to go through that again._

"_...Three years, huh. You must be worried." Yuri..._

"_Wait, this sounds weird." Karol...whispering so Yuefan wouldn't hear. She'd turned away and was looking wistfully off in the distance._

"_Yeah, the stories don't match up." Estelle..._

"_You think she could've miscounted by a thousand years?" Raven..._

"_How old is she, anyway?" Rita..._

"_Is that sage in this town?" Judith...loudly enough to draw Yuefan back from her pining. "Where does he live?"_

"_Oh, yes, he lives in the house farthest into the town." Yuefan..._

"_I think it might be faster if we went to talk to the sage." Judith...making more progress than the others with their 'what ifs' and 'that's not rights'..._

"_Y-yes, maybe so." Estelle...looking down at the crystal-me._

"_Ummm... If you're going there, could you take the clear ciel crystal to the sage for me?" Yuefan...a bit shyly._

"_Yes, of course." Estelle...and then she was putting me back into the box and darkness. This time they didn't lock it._

"_Thank you very much." Yuefan..._

"_Okay, let's go." Karol..._

_Again, I didn't really pay attention to the others' talk as they set off again, this time with a set destination. I was pondering why Nevi would have left me connected to the fake crystal... Was it necessary to maintain its form, prevent it from dissolving into aer and fairy magic? Was it part of the price he'd inadequately explained? Was it just him being a dick again?_

_How had I gotten back to the inn? Had he carried me? Hard to imagine...and he must have put the fake red box into our things, or the others would have made a fuss. Would it be odd if I asked about it when I woke up...?_

_Someone knocking on a door._

"_Excuse me." Yuri..._

_There was no response. The others milled about uncertainly, and somebody went ahead and opened the door._

"_Huh...? Hey, that's...!" Karol... I could guess who he had unexpectedly seen according to plan._

"_You're..." Rita..._

"_You... How have you come to this place?" Duke. Duke, Duke, Duke._

_Oh God, please let him not realize something's wrong with the 'apatheia' when they show me-it-to him._

"_What do you mean, how? We walked. As in, across the desert." Yuri..._

"_...I see... And yet, how did you...?" Duke...trailing off..._

_Estelle made a questioning noise._

"_No matter..." Duke...ah, maybe wondering why Estelle was in Phaeroh's illusion village alive. Khroma's doing, my good...Duke... "For what reason have you come?"_

"_We're a little curious about this." Yuri... My box was opened again. Looking down on me was Duke._

_His deep, red eyes looked old and tired. Not the tired of physical exhaustion, but spiritual weariness. I'd seen that look in Ludwig's eyes, when he was thinking about Sophia._

_Duke's brow furrowed at the sight of me-the crystal. "This must have cost you dearly to obtain." Damn straight._

"_Actually...it just sort of landed in our lap." Ohh, what do you know, Yuri?_

"_Hm...That was quite a miracle." Duke reached out and suddenly I-the crystal was in his hand. I realized the visions and sounds weren't accompanied by tactile feeling. Just as well..._

"_You're planning on making a barrier blastia, aren't you?" Rita...sounding as if she'd caught Duke in the act of something nefarious and perhaps illegal. "You're free to go pretending you're a sage, but forget about making any blastia. Who'd even consider building a barrier blastia with something that's so obviously not a core?"_

"_But it is a solid mass of aer. It simply lacks an inscribed formula." Duke, playing Rita's know-it-all game._

"_Lacks an inscribed formula...? What do you mean?" Rita...with a note to her voice of growing shock. Someone who knew more about a blastia related topic than she did? Impossible..._

"_They are most commonly known as apatheia, of which the clear ciel crystal is one example." Duke, unruffled... And if I could I would have breathed a sigh of relief. He seemed to have accepted that I-the crystal was what I-it appeared to be._

"_So this is an apatheia?" Raven...a bit hungrily. Here I was, all crystal like and the answer to one of his outstanding missions._

"_Also, I am not the sage." Duke, correcting a misconception..._

"_Huh?" Rita...taken aback since her entire little spiel had been wrong._

_Duke knelt down and deposited me-the crystal on the floor and stood. "No such being exists any longer." Oh dear, I knew what was coming._

"_Well, that's a problem. Uh, we'll need to get that back from you, in that case." Yuri...about to attempt a rescue for the crystal._

"_Neither I nor humanity have a need for such a thing." Duke held Dein Nomos in both hands and lifted it above the crstal-me. This might not be pleasant._

"_Whoa, what're you doin'? Hold on a sec!" Raven...accompanied by the sounds of furniture scrapping against the floor as people try to move it out of their way._

_But Dein Nomos was already flashing, red flares of energy coming off the blade. Wind and light began to swirl around us as the aer was disturbed by the sword's enchantments. The concentrated aer of the fairy produced apatheia began to separate, and I felt as if my own being was starting to come undone. The aer dispersed, much of it flowing away to return to the world's natural currents. I was...adrift...vaguely aware of excited voices...and then I felt myself snapped back by an inescapable pull..._and jerked as I woke up on my bed in the inn.

Staring wide eyed at the ceiling, my hands flew to my face, ran down my neck to my shoulders and down my arms until I was curled up and hugging myself tightly. Even with the disquieting sensation of being a destroyed apatheia fresh in my mind, I found myself quickly losing consciousness again.

"Damn you, Nevi," I mumbled into my pillow before falling into true sleep once more.

x x x

Damn weird chapter.

Ugh...another group vs. one boss fight. I know I said I'd stop complaining about fight scenes, but my beef this time was not having any ideas in advance on how to make this fight any different from the others. I wasn't all that excited about it, and kinda skipped it to work on the rest of the chapter. But you were all expecting to get something out of it, so there ya go! I guess I'm not totally unhappy with it either, so yay.

The not-actually-a-dream part (not to be confused with the actual dream after the fight) was something I debated the merits of doing. On one hand, it seemed needlessly complicated, weird to write, and (to me) a bit Sue-ish. Letha should not have any omniscient thing going for her other than game plot knowledge. On the other hand, just having Letha sleep through _all _the Yormgen plot developments seemed cheap. And like a bad idea, since there are people reading this who don't already know the whole plot of ToV. Can't just skip the explanations and leave them in the dark. And it ended up being a pretty big chunk of the chapter...and by necessity leaves out all plot explanations that come after Duke's little light show with Dein Nomos. Next chapter's problem!

Oh, one last thing. I've been spelling it as "krytian" til now, but while writing this chapter, I noticed it was spelled "krityan" when they were talking with Yuefan. Was it always like that and I somehow overlooked it? Do you guys care how it's spelled either way?


	45. Chapter 45: Pandora's Box Opened

*Insert long profanity ridden rant about Sylph's computer and internet connection*

*Insert spastic joy about how awesome reviewers are*

*Insert ho hum ramblings about work*

*Insert happy bubbling about counting down the days til Sylph's birthday*

Yeah, that's all you actually need to know about life this past week.

The Smurfette Principle sent me a youtube link of a song she associates with Letha (you know, because of the poll for the sake of having a poll that is up right now). Advance notice, it is a fancover of a _Spice and Wolf_ anime theme, so if you don't like either fandubs or the story then don't say you weren't warned. I like covers when they're done well, and _Spice and Wolf_.

www. youtube. com / watch?v = lnNK7fFCZjM

Anyone else have a suggestion they'd like to share, feel free at any time!

Overall address:

Thanks for everyone's input on the fake apatheia dream scene! General consensus: It was WEIRD but works with the story's advancement so has been accepted. Yay! A few people caught onto this, but since I'm not sure when it'll be mentioned in fic (or if I'll just forget it), there is a very good reason for Nevi leaving Letha kind of attached to the apatheia. Apatheia retain some of the Entelexeia's personality or something, so a fake one without anything like that might not have fooled Duke. So Nevi conveniently didn't tell Letha about that part and just set it up on his own. She _did_ ask him to help her, after all.

And now we have an extra apatheia to play with~!

Angelic:

Look! More complications! But they aren't aer related, oh my! **D:** And I have been darned like a sock! But that will never stop me from casting more foreshadows across my plot! Mwahahaha! More exclamation points!

Some Bloke:

Let us all contribute more "Raven Love"! The scenes I write with Raven are some of the most popular parts it seems. Though Yuri and Letha talking seems to beat even that, for a long list of reasons I don't think I need to outline.

You think Grandia 2 overlaps with Vesperia? I don't see it personally...though it's been a while since I've played it through. I'm actually borrowing that one again from a friend of mine (she probably forgot I still have it) and started a new game a week-or maybe three-ago. Only a few hours into it though. One thing I _do_ remember about the game was that I thought Melfice was awesome. I totally want to get to his scenes again. **:D**

x x x

Chapter 45: Pandora's Box Opened

x x x

I woke up in a confused haze. Even lying still in bed I felt dizzy. The world wanted to swim around whenever I opened my eyes, and my body was convinced that my bed was making rolling motions not unlike the _Fiertia_ at sea.

I pulled myself to the edge of the bed and allowed myself to fall out onto my hands and knees. Not quite feeling up to standing on my own, I crawled across the room to a window. There I used the wall and windowsill as aides to haul myself upright again.

Outside the sky was dark, velvety purple with just a splash of rose red slipping beneath the horizon. Windows of neighboring houses were alight with the warm flickering of candlelight, easily distinguished from the steadier, cool glow of electric or blastia powered lights.

_Of course, there isn't any blastia in Yormgen. They're like the Amish people of Terca Lumireis_. I raised a hand and flicked my own forehead. _Bad me! That kind of joke sounds extremely ignorant and bigoted. Besides, it might be more fitting to call the Krityans that..._

Going back to sleep was already starting to sound appealing. I was trying to determine the most efficient route to return to my bed with when Karol and Estelle came in.

For a moment they were baffled by my empty bed, then the princess saw me by the window. "Oh!"

They seemed relieved at first since I was out of bed, but then Estelle's face darkened a bit again. Was it because I was leaning against the wall in order to not keel over? _...Or maybe I'm being too self centered. This point of the plot gives her a lot of stuff to worry about on her own_. But I had my own concerns for the moment.

"Ace!" I exclaimed warmly. His face took on a wary expression. To be fair, the particular tone in my voice was the same one that had wheedled Chase out of his money. "C'mere and pretend you're a crutch, please?"

"I don't think you're treating me with the respect a guild boss deserves." Despite his grumbling Karol was already giving me a shoulder to lean on.

"Sure I am. I said 'please' didn't I? You could've totally turned me down," I babbled happily. "Then I'd have to claw my way across the floor on my own, of course, but you'd still be all dignified." The ace had gotten me over to the closest bed by that point. Not the one I'd been sleeping in, actually, but I wasn't going to complain if it had fresh sheets.

Estelle had been quietly watching the exchange, her face softening again into a smile. "I'm so glad, you sound like you're doing better already." She clapped her hands together then, startling me a bit even though it was done lightly. "You should probably eat something! I'll go see if there's anything left from dinner." And just like that the princess was gone again.

"Uh, okay..." I said a bit uselessly. Then with a shrug I turned back to Karol. "So, what's the big scoop?"

"Huh?" he said in confusion. "Scoop of what?"

I rolled my eyes a bit. "Just an expression. Last I knew, we'd just had a mutual beat down with a floaty ugly jelly monster. How'd we get from that to here?" _No need to tell them this wasn't the first time I was up. Hopefully Nevi did the whole teleporting thing and sent me back to bed before I was missed_.

"Oh right, yeah." Karol sucked in a deep breath of air and I braced myself for the inevitable. "We're in that Yormgen place which we read about on the Atherum but people here are confusing about that but there was this girl who had the key to that box and she opened it and it had a big crystal in it which the sage was supposed to use but it wasn't the sage it was Duke-"

_Good lord, is this kid for real? I doubt he's taking any breaths or if there's even room for punctuation in all that!_

"-and he said it was an apatheia and then his sword went Woah! And the crystal went all Wah! And was gone!" Finally a pause as he drew in another deep breath and launched himself into Part II. "And then Duke was talking about how people don't need apatheia or barriers made with apatheia and how this place is eternally calm or something like that and some stuff about the Entela-something Yeager told us about when he was Regaey-"

I corrected, "Entelexeia," but don't think he heard me.

"-and we didn't know he wasn't Regaey and said Phaeroh wants Estelle dead because the Entelawhatsits hate the Children of the Full Moon and I guess Estelle is one." He sucked in one more dearly needed breath and stopped. I stared at the kid.

"That...I'm kind of scared that I was able to follow that..." I couldn't help saying. "Did you practice it or something?"

"Huh? What makes you say that?"

"Nothing," I sighed. Settling myself in my new bed more comfortably, I sighed again as I felt sleep creeping up. "Mmm, g'night..."

"What? You're going back to sleep already?" I hummed at Karol again. "Okay, I'll let the others know..." If he said anything else, it didn't register in my groggy mind.

x x x

"Hey, just how long do you plan to sleep?"

"Three days 'n nights. Now go 'way..."

"That's a problem, we're leaving tomorrow."

"Then you strong men c'n carry me back..."

The bed creaked a bit as an extra weight settled at my feet. I cracked my eyes open and peered around. A lamp by my bed had been lit but the wick was turned down to keep the light dim. A covered plate was left by it, probably the dinner Estelle had fetched me. At the foot of my bed Yuri was sitting, sword in his lap. "There any reason why you're tormenting me?"

He wasn't looking at me, but facing the other way entirely. "Letha... Is there anything you've told us about yourself that wasn't a lie?"

_FFFFFFFF-_ "Wh-what's this all about?"

"You're always telling stories. I don't think it's a stretch to believe that bit about Ludwig adopting a lost kid is another made up story."

I opened my mouth and then closed it without saying anything. It wouldn't do any good to keep up with my usual mishmash of truth and lies at this rate. I pulled my blanket over my head. "...Do we have to talk about this? You were fine with leaving it be back in Nordopolica."

The swordsman didn't say anything and I thought he'd drop it again. He had accepted the story I gave him...I didn't even remember when. Sometime back when the journey had just started, when we'd barely known each other for a few weeks. There'd been plenty of time to think about it, find holes, form questions...but other than that abortive attempt in the coliseum Yuri had left my personal history alone.

Apparently my grace period was up.

"Things changed in Nordopolica."

"I don't see how," I mumbled. Yuri heard anyway.

"I overheard your uncle talking with someone. About orders to kill you."

The words seemed so impossible that my reaction was delayed. Which was to sit bolt upright, blanket falling away forgotten. "What?" Yuri was watching me, observing my shock with coal dark eyes. There were even small points of light in each reflected from the lamp, like embers from a banked fire.

"Somebody was telling Ludwig to kill you," he repeated mercilessly.

"That can't be..." I denied, but my voice had no strength to it.

"I tried to get him to talk during our fight," I was only barely aware enough to note what could be either bitterness or irritation, "But only got him to admit that he might have to kill you at some point." _No..._ "And he also said you hadn't been with him nearly as long as you said."

That last part was like a twist of the knife already firmly embedded in my gut. _Ludwig...why? I thought you were helping me_ keep_ my secrets...?_

"Letha." I tried to marshal my reeling thoughts to focus on the swordsman in front of me. "Why are you pretending to be someone you aren't? What the hell have you been doing that has people out to kill you?"

But I could only shake my head slowly, "Ludwig...Ludwig wouldn't kill me..."

Yuri's expression hardened a bit, as if he wanted to scowl at me. "You think I'd make this up?"

"No..." I stopped shaking my head, and my mouth drew a firm and stubborn line. "But Ludwig wouldn't kill me."

"Wouldn't he?" Yuri demanded. "What if it was for his wife's sake? The woman you've been calling your aunt?"

"Ludwig wouldn't kill me!" I practically shouted, face flushed angrily. I swung my legs out of bed and sprang to my feet. "Fine! So we're not blood related! So I'm not as important as his long dead wife! I've known him for less than a year, but I still _know!_ He wouldn't!"

I was about to storm out of the room, too upset and frightened to bear sitting still, but I'd only taken a few steps before Yuri grabbed me by the wrist. "You're not really going to run away from this are you?"

I turned back so that my body naturally positioned itself in aikido's starting homni. From his previous experience with my throws Yuri saw what was coming when my off hand reached for the hand grabbing me and let go on his own. Freed, I whirled away and stormed out the door while ignoring his call.

I couldn't face him when I wasn't sure if I wanted to punch him or burst into tears. There was already a dampness in my eyes I was fighting not to shed.

As had become a habit in this world I naturally sought out a dark secluded spot where I could see the moon and stars. The few people still out stopped to stare as I stomped by. I avoided any eye contact and kept staring straight at my feet until I'd left the other late night ramblers behind.

Nearly leaving the town made me pay a bit more attention to where I was going. Not wanting to get lost on my own out in the desert, I sat down at the base of three trees that had nearly merged at the roots. Once my body realized it had stopped moving it began to tremble as violently as it had after even my worst nightmares. "He _wouldn't_, dammit..."

I bit my lower lip so the sob that wanted to escape couldn't.

My head, like some extension of my heart, felt too heavy to let me look up at the sky. Instead I stared at the black outlines of grass and scraggly bushes gently stirring in the night breeze. Thinking was painful so I decided not to think about anything.

Night sounds are soft and pleasant. They can be frightening when you start imagining all the things that _could_ be out there, hiding in the dark. The dark itself is not dangerous if you don't let your fear of it blind you. Instead, it was supremely soothing.

As I let the soft singing of night insects and wind calm me my thoughts began to seep through cracks in my meditative state. _After all he did for me, why would Ludwig agree to kill me? And if, for some reason, he did, then why give me lessons in fighting? Why the sword manual?_

_Yuri wouldn't make it up. Lying isn't like him, and I don't see what purpose it would serve. Could he have...misunderstood the situation?_ But I had no ideas what alternative there could be that would cause such a mistake.

_So it may really be that Ludwig will...that he took such a job. But I don't think it's like him either, so there must be another reason that I don't know... _I honestly believed that Ludwig considered me family. He'd given me Sophia's bodhi blastia after all. He'd taught me all he could to keep me alive. What was I to make of such a contradiction?

A cold feeling shivered down my spine. _No..._ There was one conclusion that came to mind. _If he was...it could be the scenario of being betrayed by a trusted one, and fighting that person to the traitor's death, only to learn he'd goaded you into killing him. Ludwig is all about honor and dignity, if someone convinced him he had a duty to fight me, he'd do it. But if he doesn't want me to die this is just what he'd do to give me a fair chance_.

The cold knot in my stomach clenched. _Maybe he's even hoping_...

Without the cover of my mp3 player or my own voice, for once I heard the sound of feet approaching in the dark. I said nothing to acknowledge the person. Maybe they'd overlook me and leave.

"Found you," _he_ sat down next to me without invitation. I continued to ignore him. "What, you're not even going to ask how, or complain about me sneaking up on you again?" Was I supposed to just make a joke after all that? Continued to ignore him instead. He sighed.

"'Known him for less than a year,' huh?" I stiffened, and then tried to make my silence even more oppressive. It did nothing to deter him. "So was it a lie when you said you couldn't remember things from before? Like your real name?"

I rocked myself forward and wrapped my arms tightly around my knees. "No."

He waited, but I didn't elaborate. "Then what about the stuff you said you could remember?" he tried again.

"Less of that every day." I was barely ever writing anything in my journal anymore. Instead I had been furiously rereading it until the pages were smudged and creased.

Not waiting as long this time to see if I'd keep going, he moved on himself. "What about Sophia?"

"Never knew her."

A pause only long enough to draw a breath. "And your hand?"

"Don't want to talk about it."

"Does it have to do with why Ludwig is supposed to kill you?"

I didn't answer this time. The nearly one sided conversation faltered.

What Yuri finally said aloud was, "I didn't see who it was talking with him. Only heard voices, and the other one wasn't familiar." Then he quickly added, as if to head off any expression of doubt, "But it was Ludwig. I saw him at least."

"I believe you," I said in a monotone. He grunted a bit, as if not convinced.

"Do you have any idea who the other one could've been?"

"Go away." The words were a bit muffled from having been spoken into my knees. Yuri didn't say anything in response, but he didn't leave either. "You're annoying." Still nothing, he was giving me the same silent treatment I'd doled out on him earlier. But waiting me out when I don't want to talk is a futile endeavor. Talkative and friendly I may be, but that was when I cared to hide my brooding and worries.

Nature had its own two cents to put in, though, as my stomach growled loudly.

That almost made the corner of my lip rise in a halfhearted smile. _Such a mood killer_... Yuri laughed a bit, holding out something wrapped in cloth. Deciding it would be a worse blow to my dignity if I didn't accept, I took the bundle and unwrapped it. Croquettes. That made me want to laugh myself, remembering the game skit about how amazing Yuri's croquettes were supposed to be. Taking a bite out of one, I decided that even cold they tasted pretty good.

And with a full mouth he really couldn't expect me to talk, now could he?

"Heh, it seems like everyone's pretty stubborn about doing things on their own," Yuri mused.

I swallowed the mouthful I was chewing and scoffed, "Like you're in any position to say that!"

As I was about to take a bite from another croquette, Yuri grabbed my wrist again so I had to stop and look at him. "What did that mean?"

I found myself lowering my eyes and staring at the croquette instead of him. Clever, if I was sitting with food in my lap and hand, I couldn't really do anything to escape again.

But how could I make him give up on the subject? I still had fears of sharing the actual truth, but anything else would be 'telling more stories'. _...Why not do just that, then? _ "Once upon a time-"

"Is now really the time for that?"

"-there was a hunter. He was returning home when he spied something by the path he was walking. On closer inspection he discovered it was a human skull."

"And you're ignoring me now."

"Finding a skull by the road is nothing so unusual. Not really thinking much of it, the hunter looked at the skull and asked, 'What brought you here?' To his astonishment, the skull spoke! 'Talking brought me here.'

"Amazed by this impossible thing, the hunter hurried to the court and told his king about the talking skull he'd found. 'Let us see this!' the king declared. Bringing his entire retinue he went with the hunter to where the skull had been left in the dirt and grass of the roadside.

"The hunter urged the skull to speak again, but it remained silent. For an entire day the hunter tried to get the skull to say something while the king grew more and more impatient. Finally, the king had enough. 'You have brought me out here to make of fool of me!' he accused, and then ordered his guards to cut off the hunter's head.

"The king and his people left the hunter's body in the dirt and returned to their city. Silence fell as nothing living was left. And as the sun was about to set, the skull spoke. 'What brought you here?' it asked the hunter's head.

"And the head answered, 'Talking brought me here'."

At some point while I was speaking Yuri had let me go. I considered the croquette still in my hand before replacing it on the cloth in my lap.

"Subtle way to make a point," he commented insincerely.

"Hey, aesops and parables are awesome for making a point." I pointed at him, "So awesome that you're gonna drop this whole 'let's find out what Letha's hiding' scheme of yours and let a lady keep her private affairs private."

He snorted a bit, prompting me to elbow him. "Hey! I _am_ a lady! When I feel like it!"

"Of course," he agreed blithely. "All real ladies have morbid fascinations with skulls and keeping secrets."

I nodded sagely, "Exactly. Most don't make the skull part common knowledge though."

He stood up, picking up his sword from where it had been lying in the dark. "I know when I'm not getting anywhere. But," he looked back down at me, "it's not like any of us would behead you or something."

My head jerked up a bit, surprised._ He just used my own story example against me!_ Yuri was already leaving. "I told you we're heading out in the morning, so don't stay out too late."

"Uh, 'kay..." Again, I was left alone with the soft sounds of the night. This time it only felt...empty.

x x x

I crept back into the inn under cover of darkness. The late hour made it likely most, if not everyone else, was asleep. Sure enough when I tiptoed to the door of the large, shared room I was greeted by even breathing and the occasional snore (*coughRavencough*).

_Wish my mp3 player hadn't bit the dust. I'm wide awake and don't wanna just lie in bed staring at the ceiling for hours_. Instead I quietly found where they'd left my bag and retreated back to the inn's hallway. Nobody was stationed at the front desk at that hour so I made myself comfortable in the chair and turned on the lamp. By which I mean I spent ten minutes trying to make a spark of fire with aer until the lamp wick finally caught.

Reaching into my bag I located by touch what I wanted. When my fingers ran over smooth wood I pulled out the case that held Sophia's notes. My thoughts earlier on what Ludwig's motives and intentions could be were something I had no way of verifying at the time. But good odds something Ludwig felt strong enough to kill over probably involved Sophia in some manner. And it really was about time I got the blasted thing open, even if it didn't have anything I could use.

I laid the white case on the desk and folded my arms to look down imposingly on it. "How the hell did she lock you?" It had proven impervious to all methods of forcing open (short of totally obliterating the thing, which I'd never let anyone try) and kept out_smarting_ me, dammit! Ludwig seemed to think I would be able to figure it out on my own...

With one finger I traced one of the stylized flowers. _Well let me see...I bet if this was an actual part of the video game, some kind of plot advancing puzzle, I'd probably be getting fed up with the characters for not figuring out that the answer was right _there_. And in this case, the only other thing I have even related to Sophia would be..._ I unclipped the bodhi blastia from my hair, wondering if it could really be that coincidentally convenient.

I stared at the red jewel set between the spread wings, somewhat mesmerized by the way it caught the light from the lamp. Inside, if you looked hard, there were strings of odd symbols frozen in a series of loops. That would be the formula...

Deciding to try the simplest solutions first and figure out what next after they failed, I placed the blastia on the center of the note case. Yeah, like that would-

_Holy crap the blastia's lighting up!_

There was a brief and relatively small red flare of light from the jewel, followed by the flower designs glowing white so that I could no longer distinguish them from the box itself. There was a small click, and then the light faded from both the blastia and drawings.

"...Huh." It took me so long to figure out, and _that_ was all I needed to do? _Well, I guess it wouldn't make sense for Sophia to set up some needlessly complicated ritual she'd have to do every time she wanted to check her notes. But how did she do this in the first place? If it were a normal spell, Rita should have recognized it..._

Picking up the case I inspected it thoroughly again. Back when I'd first found it, Karol had pointed out that it was a trick lid. Even though it had hinges and a lock the crack that went around wasn't a real lid. And it hadn't been at the time. But now that lid lifted away easily and swung back on the hinges, the lock apparently either for show or unlocked by the same magic earlier.

How?

I carefully lifted out the stack of papers inside. They were old and yellowing, I had to handle them gently to avoid ripping them. The handwriting on the first page was easy to read despite having faded a bit. Sophia's writing wasn't quite as neat as Estelle's, smaller and crammed as much onto a single page as possible, but it was perfectly legible. Bit of a relief, that, since I did not like the idea of straining my eyes til they bled trying to read them. Leafing through the small pile for a cursory inspection, about five pages in there was a change in the notes that made my heart skip.

The alphabet changed.

The first few pages were written in the Terca Lumireis writing system, but then abruptly changed to overly careful print very like Estelle's first attempts in our writing lessons. Frantically I spread the pages all out across the desks. For sure, after that first page of nearly childish handwriting all the rest of the notes were written in my familiar and sorely missed Earth writing. The realization chilled me to the bone.

With trembling hands I picked up the very first page again, the one with Terca Lumireis writing, and began to read from the beginning.

It was dated nearly twenty five years earlier. Woah... Skimming over it, most of it seemed to be collection of facts she'd noted down while reading. I really couldn't understand any of the history referenced, and consequently couldn't really follow the conjectures Sophia was making. What did catch my eye was a small blurb near the end that resembled more of a diary entry.

_**There was a visitor in the library, a woman with white hair. She wanted help researching all ruins attributed to the Geraios Civilization. When I asked why she told me she had a theory that something she was looking for might be found inside one. We talked for awhile, and I told her that to go on sight was dangerous without bringing protection. I'm a bit worried, since she just smiled and thanked me for my concern.**_

Mysterious...but that could have been anything. I checked the next page. The date was three days after the first, and contained more of the same. And another brief commentary at the end.

_**The white haired woman visited again today. This time she asked me about my own research. But even though she brought it up I don't think she was really paying any attention to what I was saying. She kept staring into the cup of tea she'd made with an odd smile, and I don't know how she brought the tea in without upsetting the librarians.**_

_**When it was getting late she thanked me with perfect politeness and left on her own again.**_

Odd sounding woman...but not so much. Especially since I was assuming the library mentioned was the massive one in Aspio. Everyone there was a bit off their rocker. I had to wonder what it was about those encounters that gave Sophia the urge to make note of them. Perhaps she didn't even know, or else she would have mentioned why the white haired woman was of interest.

Next entry about the woman, a week later.

_**The white haired woman was here again. I spotted her at the other end of an aisle before she greeted me this time. Actually, she seemed more lost in thought than was usual for her. She was even frowning, an expression I'd somehow thought she was incapable of. I was going to say hello to her, but was distracted for a moment when a draft nearly blew away the maps I was carrying. When I looked again she was gone.**_

…

Next entry, a little over two weeks later.

_**I'd nearly forgotten about the white haired woman as I'm so close to a break through. But when I thought I'd almost made that connection, I realized there was someone standing in front of the table I was working at. She seemed tired but at least she smiled again. Oddly, even once I realized she was there it seemed to take her a minute to realize I had stopped working. I thought she was the one who wanted to talk with me?**_

_**And this time she actually started by introducing herself as Sybelle Bianca. How we didn't get to introductions until the fourth, or I suppose the third, meeting, I have no idea. It seems her own work has been suffering from setbacks. She mentioned an Alastor, and said he was having trouble with a new friend of his. Sybelle then seemed to look at me more clearly than she had ever before and asked if I was interested in learning about something not found in any of the library's books.**_

Under that was a chart very similar to the one I'd made when I started teaching Estelle. And it was the page after this one where everything was written in Earth's writing. I leaned back in the chair I'd appropriated and passed a hand over my eyes and ran the fingers through my hair.

Sybelle...and Alastor. Now it could just be coincidence that one of the white haired woman's friends had that name, but there were a bit too many coincidences lining up. As Gibbs would say in NCIS, "I don't believe in coincidences." And then he'd smack someone's head so they'd start tracking down the missing link.

So this Sybelle _Bianca_, and wasn't that odd, to have a family name that meant white and happen to have white hair? Not impossible, but it stood out along with her catching Sophia's eye, the odd moments she had that Sophia described, and the very big thing about her teaching Sophia to write in an Earth alphabet. At the very least she had a connection to Earth, and since Fairy Alastor had been the one to make me pick up those notes, her connection was probably through the fairies as well.

Could Sybelle have been in the same situation as me? Or was she...one of them? I bent forward over the papers again and returned to reading.

Other than a brief comment that Sybelle had recommended Sophia didn't show of the writing to others, there wasn't really much of substance in those little quasi diaries. Their meetings were sporadic, and as much as a month could pass without Sophia meeting her friend. The mental image I had formed of Sybelle was of a somewhat airheaded woman, but Sophia seemed to find her company interesting and conversation intelligent.

_**Sybelle was already at our usual table today. It seemed she'd been there awhile, and seemed more down than I've ever seen her before. When I asked her what was the matter, she moaned and said she'd been a fool, and couldn't believe she'd let them pull one over her. Whoever they are, she did not elaborate. I asked what it was "they" had done, she looked at me with nearly wild eyes and said, "Not only did the fools steal it, but then one of them carelessly **_**broke**_** it into pieces! And no matter how we try none of my kind can sense them anymore! Our one stroke of fortune is that they are no more capable of finding them than we are."**_

_Oh bloody-is she talking about what I think she is?_

_**This sounded serious. When I said I'd thought she'd been searching for relics in the various Geraios ruins her expression cleared again. And then she asked me if I'd believe her when she said there were worlds besides our Terca Lumireis.**_

_OH JEEZUS-_

_**Of course, I'd never rule anything out as impossible without definite proof that it couldn't be first**_

_Really now, Sophia?_

_**but neither would I accept something as true without proof, as I told her. And then she asked me to come meet her outside Aspio's gates after dark.**_

Her notes for the day ended there.

I snatched up the next page, almost tearing it. There were no research notes on this one. Or, more accurately, it turned the summaries of her meetings with Sybelle _into_ the topic being studied and hypothesized over.

_**Sybelle's story is fantastic...but I have no reason to doubt her veracity. The wings she showed me were proof enough that she was not of the Human or Krityan races, and her magic, oh such magic, it had no reliance on blastia! Or aer! It makes perfect sense for a world with no aer to produce such a being, and I can see no better explanation for what she is.**_

_**Yet marvelous as she seems, she has her own limitations and failings. Her incapability of locating what was stolen from her people being one such shortcoming. While she would not divulge the specifics on the intricacies of her kind's magic, she explained that an invaluable object had been stolen and summarily broken and scattered by malcontents from her home world. The breaking was presumably accidental, as the malcontents seem as frantic to find the missing pieces as she and her colleagues are to recover it. The nature of the spell that broke and scattered this object also served to render it invisible to all their methods of search.**_

_**She'd been attempting to work around this handicap, as had her people from both sides of the internal conflict, but so far it seems the best solution has been to enlist the aid of other races without inherent magical properties of their own. I find this point contains knot of problems as she implied humans were among the non-magical beings, but I and others are fully capable of using magics. Or do we not count, as we require the blastia to harness the aer around us? This thought fires my interest in blastia even more as I wonder how they enable a non-magical individual to wield magic.**_

_**But my blastia research cannot be my only concern anymore. I am Sybelle's only friend in this world, and have promised to help her and her people as best I can.**_

This was...what Nevys had told me, more or less. But something felt off... I reread all the pages so far, looking for what was itching at the edge of my awareness. It was when I reached Alastor's name again that I got it. Sophia seemed to imply that Sybelle and Alastor were on friendly terms, and if it was the same Alastor I knew (how couldn't it be) allies in the search for the heirloom pieces.

Nevys had told me the same story in less detail and very grudgingly at that. When he told it, it was implied that he was also opposing those thieves. But...

Why then do he and Alastor seem to be enemies?

Who should I really be trusting?

_It could be one of them was lying. Or there could have been a falling out, and some of them switched sides. These notes _are_ old after all._

There were more pages, but the sky was lightening in a false dawn and I could hear some early birds singing outside. It would be a few more hours until the sun actually rose, but there may yet be people up before then. I felt a jealous protectiveness at the thought of others seeing Sophia's notes. To see them was like brushing a connection back to Earth. They were too precious to me.

Gathering them together neatly, I replaced them in the case and closed it. I wanted to lock it again, but placing the blastia on the lid again did nothing nor did I have a regular key for the small lock on the side. Hoping the others would continue to believe it was locked and leave it alone was the best I could do.

Dousing the lamp's flame, I returned to my bed and tried to get a few hours of sleep in. We'd have another long day in the desert, and I couldn't afford to go back out there without as much rest as possible. I had no dreams that I could remember, not even nightmares.

x x x

_**Likes and Dislikes**_

_Rita: Yormgen and Mantaic are totally different. It's much cooler here. Maybe it's the ocean..._

_Raven: But it seems boring. I wonder what the folks here do for fun._

_Judith: I kind of like it. This kind of calm, quiet village suits me. I can't stand loud people._

_Yuri: Ohhh. That's gotta hurt, old man._

_Raven: She was talking about the town, not about me!_

_Judith: Hmm, maybe..._

_Raven: D-do you really hate me that much?_

x x x

Everyone else was laying out their game plans... The couple wanted to return to their home and children. Rita wanted to study the krene in the Weasand of Cados. Raven, Karol, and Yuri all wanted to go to Nordopolica to meet Belius (or have a serious talk with Flynn, in Yuri's case). Estelle was still resolved to meet Phaeroh, despite the misgivings talking with Duke had given her.

When Rita wished there was another way that didn't involve Giant Talking Chickens, Judith spoke up. "You're only looking to find out the reason you were...attacked by the Entelexeia, correct?"

Estelle nodded slightly, "Y-yes..."

"I imagine Belius could tell you if you met with her." If I hadn't been busy with my own thoughts I might have spared a moment to wonder why Judith didn't mention that before, and to maybe guess that was because we were going to see Belius anyway until rather urgent escaping guild bosses distracted us.

Instead I was concentrating on one, looking healthy so no one would nag me about how long I'd been passed out, two, studiously ignoring Yuri again (who didn't seem to realize I was doing so yet), and three, turning over the revelations I'd read in Sophia's notes. I probably wouldn't dare to read the rest until I had the privacy of a room in Mantaic, but it was killing me not to know. I was partly wishing I'd said to hell with sleep and read the rest of it the night before. But too late for that.

"Well, we'll pass through the Weasand of Cados on the way to see Belius. Good enough?" Raven summed up our game plan, which everyone was nodding at.

"True enough," Yuri said aloud for all of us. "All right, then, Nordopolica it is."

And Karol made his guild boss' executive decision. "Right. First let's get back to Mantaic."

_Whoohoo, back to Mantaic! I wonder if they found Cumore's body..._

x x x

Could have also titled this chapter "About Damn Time!" or "Yormgen is Seriously Full of Plot".

First half of this chapter gave me such frustration. I got into the full swing of writing easily, but then it got caught up and ran away with me and the characters were saying too much! I was going, "Stop stop! Save some of it for later!" As a result had to tweak and move bits around and rewrite a few times. Almost thought I should just start over entirely... And I'm sure some of you wish the characters got the better of me and kept talking anyway. ;P

Hey, at least we finally got that damned note case open! Seriously, I myself was getting impatient about it, but didn't want to open it too early...I really think this is the earliest I can accept letting Letha open it.


	46. Chapter 46: Expected and Unexpected

I'M BACK! SORRY!

There's a list of reasons I could give for why it took so damn long to post, but trust me when I say nobody really wants to hear most of it. Suffice to say that I'm seriously looking for a new computer at a reasonable price, so a large chunk of those reasons will go away and never come back... My brother is helping. The rest of it...let's not go there.

I had a simply lovely birthday though! KatherosLibra did more fanart, or rather a fancomic as a b-day present to me! See here:

Page 1: http:/ katheroslibra. deviantart. com/gallery/#/d3xzcz3

Page 2: http:/ katheroslibra. deviantart. com/gallery/#/d3xzf9x

Page 3: http:/ katheroslibra. deviantart. com/gallery/#/d3xzhz9

And Shiroi wrote another one shot in the FTaBV universe as a present! (Which some of you noticed):

http:/ www. fanfiction. net/s/ 7184630/1/

Oh, and Devonlizz sent a link for another song for Letha: http:/www. youtube. com/watch?v= EeTbvkpnLIs &feature=feedf

And then, the day after my birthday, something went wrong with the waterline on our entire street. Scared the hell out of me, because no one thought to WARN ME in the morning. Imagine Sylph (however you picture me in your head) running out of the bathroom yelling, "The toilet is possessed by EVIL!"

What else do I need to cover...Oh right. Yes. *Ahem* There is that odd little oneshot I posted for the hell of it. Probably overdid the disclaimers a bit (Alastor: Just a bit? Sylph: Oh, shut up.), but at the time I was a bit worked up because I was miffed with myself for writing what I'd said I wouldn't write, and discovered I'd had _fun_ doing it. But really, shippers, I'm sorry but don't get your hopes up.

Angelic:

There is never _too_ much plot! Just a whole fricken' lot of it!

…And more coming. Hell, we've still got actual game plot to cover, and my own original plot kicking in here. I will not deny the fluff (surprised?), because this story needs all the fluff it can get at this point to balance out the angst! and the foreshadow(s)! and the ZOMGPLOT!

Adelle:

Heheh, yeah I figured there were people doing that. Some had guessed in their reviews that that was the answer. And don't worry, phone or no phone your review seemed fine. Better than my phone would make it. :P

Some Bloke:

Aaaand I know you have an account now, but still answering this review with the other anon reviews... God, it's taken me so long to put this chapter up.

I think I get what you mean about the Grandia 2 comparison now. (Side note, the term Geohound bothered me because it was just a pointless new way of calling Ryudo a mercenary... *Gasp* He's Kratos!) And I have an odd image of Raven as an old reminiscing gamer...

Caaan't give away what I'm planning with the Belius thing...but hey, have fun with this chapter!

Anonymous:

Whew, one day? I can't even read it that fast anymore. Then again, I already find myself wincing over the earlier chapters and getting depressed over parts I could have done better. (Then I look at the recent chapters again and decide that nevertheless, I'm happy with how my progress in writing and the story itself is coming along.) Yeah, one of the things I regret a bit is missed opportunities to have the others...try to draw Letha out more, as one way of putting it. But have to keep moving forward anyway, and hope that as the story progresses it balances itself out. ...I'm trying and failing to say what I want in a way that won't make it too obvious how I hope to do that.

x x x

Chapter 46: Expected and Unexpected

x x x

_**I Want a Shower:**_

_Judith: Oh, what to do..._

_Karol: ...What to you mean?_

_Judith: I'll die if I can't take a shower once a day... And in a dry old desert like this..._

_Karol: R-really? Rita, you have to do something!_

_Rita: Humph. Idiot... She'll be fine. It's not like she's a flower. Going without a shower won't kill you. It's been 10 days since I last showered, actually._

_Judith: It's been that long...? I'd be on my deathbed if I were you..._

_Letha: Jeez...I'm not into daily showers either, but 10 days without even one sounds..._

_Karol: I've got it! Rita's not a flower! She's a prickly cactus!_

_Rita: Die!_

_*Rita fireballs Karol*_

_Karol: Gaaah!_

_Letha: ...Not a cactus, but one of those fire flowers from Super Smash Brothers..._

x x x

"-and she slaps him across the face," I demonstrated by bracing one hand against Raven's cheek, then pretended to smack him across the face. The sound of flesh hitting flesh rang out as I clapped my hands across each other, Raven playing along and reeling with the 'blow', "before Mal can blow her story by asking Inara what she was doing there. While he's trying to figure out what he did to deserve that, you know, besides the whole getting caught halfway through a train job, Inara rounds on Zoe.

"'And you, Zoe! What would your husband say?'

"Just as baffled as her captain, Zoe at least had enough presence of mind to remember the security watching and make the sheepish reply, 'I-I was weak.' Inara then very diplomatically excused herself for interrupting the security officer's interrogation, but the two 'newlyweds' were her indentured servants that had tried to run off with some of her property."

Raven was chuckling over that, still rubbing his 'slapped' cheek, while Estelle was quietly explaining what 'indentured' meant to Karol.

"He very genially accepted her apology and gratitude for catching the waywards, brushing it off by saying, 'We thought there was a bit of a smell to their story.' Since the security was convinced Mal and Zoe weren't their culprits, they let Inara take them away." I paused to take a small sip of the water we'd gotten from a cactus. Getting water from cacti was definitely harder than the game made it seem: cut a hole in the cactus (without stabbing yourself on the needles), pull out some pulp, and try to squeeze enough out of it to make the effort worthwhile. Judith advised us against eating the pulp itself.

"Of course, meaning they let the real criminals got away stock free," Yuri observed. "Sounds a bit like the Imperial Knights."

Estelle was alarmed, "But wait! What about the sick miners?"

"Yeah, did they really take away the shipment of medicine on that 'train'?" Karol asked worriedly. And holy crap, the trouble I went through to explain the concept of a train to them. Space ship? Easy, they probably imagined something similar to the _Fiertia_ with walls, ceiling, and flight capabilities (sans Ba'ul). Trains, though, are 'series of carriages linked together, running on wood and metal tracks, and move under the power of coal and steam, not blastia or animals'.

What I wouldn't give to know what they were each picturing in their heads.

"Well," I drawled, "they were pretty ticked that Niska hadn't told them what was in the crates, and it really didn't sit well that the poor and sick were the victims. So, under strong objections from Jayne, which were largely ignored since he was still all half paralyzed and harmless from the shot Simon had knocked him out with," Rita grinned evilly, having highly approved the demonstration of the scientific mind's superiority over the muscle head (Simon had at that point of the game said, 'I was just uncomfortable with him being in charge...' His logic was accepted without comment by the crew), "they decided to tell Niska's grunt that they quit and return the money he'd paid them-"

At some point during the whole endless trudging through sand part of the day, Karol had remembered I'd been telling them about _Firefly_ and after much nagging got me to continue. I was starting to regret giving in, as the constant talking made me go through my water rations faster. Which had already been depleted when a few of the canteens were damaged beyond use by some monsters.

The married couple we were escorting back to Mantaic had been kept near the center of our group to protect them in the case of a monster ambush, and we had at least one of our group stay near them as a guard at all times while we fought. At night they had insisted on cooking dinner for us, not that we really objected much, and shared our tents. When I resumed my storytelling they were initially very confused by pretty much every word out of my mouth, but listened politely.

For the most part I tried to stay near Estelle, Karol, or Rita at all times. It wasn't like I was outright trying to avoid Yuri...but I didn't talk with him beyond what was necessary. Talking with Raven felt uncomfortable too, and I could swear that whenever I _was_ talking to one of those guys, Judith would be watching from somewhere.

Whenever I felt like calling it quits with _Firefly_, I'd remember that those three were my most likely socializing alternatives. _Yeaaah, with everything else that's happened in the last few days, I'd rather stick to conversations that won't feel like a run through a minefield_. Nice that there were some people I could count on to take what's said at face value.

Well, Rita wouldn't always accept things easily since she'd get worked up about story details. But when she got curious about the origins of these stories containing such fantastic sciences ('Who the hell came up with this? It sounds too thought out to just be a figment of some guy's imagination!') she could be sidetracked from dangerous topics by getting her on the topic of aer, blastia, apatheia, aer krenes, and the list goes oooon. There was actually quite a bit I _could_ talk with her about, as long as I was prepared to understand only about a third of what she was saying.

But at the back of my mind at all times was the unexpected revelations from Sophia's notes, and the uneasy feeling that I was walking along an invisible precipice.

And, of course, on top of all this we were all GOD DAMNED HOT. And Raven was obnoxiously cheerful. Even Rita got sick of smacking him in the head.

When Mantaic appeared out of the heat warped distance, everyone perked up at the prospect of civilization (as if we hadn't been in Yormgen only a couple days before). I was as happy as anyone, but then my good spirits came crashing down again. _What's going to happen? Cumore's already dead..._ The anxiety and guilt from that misadventure returned in nearly full force, at war with my longing for shade, a bucket's worth of water, and a shower.

Out of some irrational hope to put off seeing how my actions had changed things as long as possible, my feet started to drag until I was lagging behind the rest of the group. Which proved fortuitous when I stopped abruptly and gaped in shock.

"Pheew... We're finally here," Rita sighed in relief. "I've seen enough sand to last me a lifetime." She bumped into Raven when the head of the group stopped abruptly.

Estelle had raised a hand to block the sun from her eyes. "Look...there are people outside the town..." _But-!_

Rita perked up a bit, curious. "Wonder if that means the curfew's been lifted." _No! This is-it shouldn't be happening!_

At the town's entrance was a gathering of people, knights and despondent townspeople. One by one the terrified people were being forced to climb up into a drawn carriage (more of those pseudo horses...). _This-well, it's what happens in the game, but with Cumore dead it shouldn't happen anymore!_

The voice of the knight apparently in charge carried over to us from the gate. "Anyone who fails to comply with Captain Cumore's orders in a timely fashion will be left deepest in the Sands." I realized with some surprise that I recognized the voice. It was the knight Cumore had been talking to the night I, well, _that_ night. What was his name...Blakely! Cumore's lieutenant!

One of the villagers yet to board the carriage protested. "But what'll our children do without us?" Blakely spun towards him and grabbed the villager by the neck, shoving him to the front of the line so that he was forced to climb up next.

"Bring back that giant, winged monster or you'll have a real reason to worry!" he barked. The villagers continued to plead, but he otherwise ignored them.

"That's just how we were sent into the desert," the man we'd rescued told us.

"The giant, winged monster must be Phaeroh," Karol realized. "And that Knight said it was Cumore who's in charge!"

"Yeah," Raven scratched at his scraggly chin, "but what's he want ta capture Phaeroh so bad for?" I realized both of my hands were clamped over my mouth, as if I'd done it to keep from speaking my mental denials out loud. I tried to lower them casually, hoping no one had thought much of it.

How could the knights still be following Cumore's orders like nothing had happened? _Did he...not die? Was I just so worked up, I was mistaken?_ Mixed feelings of fear and hope shot through me as it briefly seemed possible that he was yet alive. But no, even if I'd been in hysterics, Chase had been able to examine him with a clear frame of mind. Cumore was definitely dead.

_So what does that leave?_ I wondered as the others talked over what could be done to stop the knights.

"Karol, c'mere a sec," Yuri knelt down on a knee so he was on the ace's level and whispered in the boy's ear.

"What?" Yuri repeated something, "Yeah, I could do that...but I'd need tools..." Karol looked up sharply at Yuri when he stood up again. "Wait, you mean...?"

"Perhaps this will help," Judith offered a wrench that she'd gotten from...somewhere. I was suspecting she kept an extra bag or something under that sash-cape thingy.

Karol hung his head and sarcastically quipped, "How convenient..." Glumly he took the wrench from Judith before raising his head and giving us all such a pitiable look. "You guys better bail me out if this goes bad." Yuri gave him a thumbs up and Estelle made some kind of encouraging 'I'm rooting for you' motion, though Raven just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Not able to help myself, I reached out and ruffled Karol's hair once as a send off. He ducked his head away from my hand and started sneaking towards the carriage, keeping it between him and the knights' line of sight.

"So you did pick that up," Yuri said conversationally to Judith as we watched and waited.

She folded her hands behind her back and gave another of her faint, good-for-all-purposes smiles. "Well, it was just lying there. I thought it might be useful."

"You're awesome, Judith," I said in a matter of fact tone, "You know that, right?"

"I'm glad you think so."

Rita walked past us with a flat look on her face, "Whatever." Once in front of the rest of us she squinted at Karol's back. _Ah...all us taller people were blocking her view_.

"Now about all we can do is leave it up to the kid," Raven said, and we all fell silent while watching the boy with some apprehension.

Blakely had bullied nearly all the townspeople onto the carriage by that point, and was snapping at his men to force them in tighter to fit the last three into the cramped space. Karol had reached the other side of the carriage and was hard at work on the front wheel with Judith's wrench. We all held our breath in fear when one of the knights switched sides to do something (I dunno what, I was busy watching Karol), but the boy must have seen his feet approaching from underneath the carriage.

He slipped under, crawling on all fours, and popped back out just behind the pseudo horses' feet. I clenched my hands, terribly frightened that these monsters had the same instincts of regular horses to kick out at whatever approaches them from behind. But Karol must not have bothered them as they stayed calm while he hid among their legs while messing with the other front wheel. When the knight rejoined the others, the boy left the safety of the horse things and darted back towards us.

He was only halfway back when a knight cracked a whip over the pseudo horses' heads, they started to pull the carriage forward and the wheels quickly came off the axle like screws. That carriage collapsed in a cloud of dust as the passengers cried in shock and pain from being abruptly dropped and jostled around. The knights swarmed the front of the carriage with Blakely furiously demanding who the hell had been responsible just as Karol made it back to us.

"You did it!" Yuri greeted him with slap to the hand (...sort of a low five).

"Whew..." Karol bent over and breathed with relief, his free hand over his heart. "My heart was pounding like a drum." I noticed that the wrench was sticking partway out of his bag, but something was still clenched in his fist. He looked up and saw my interest then grinned as she held up his hand to show me. Several nuts and bolts jingled merrily in his hand.

I grinned back at him, "Nice."

Our shared sense of mischievous success died when we heard Blakely's voice clearly declaring, "When I find out who tampered with these wheels, I'll have a rope strung around his neck!" I wordlessly took the incriminating hardware from the kid and tossed it away over in the sand.

"This won't do anything more than buy us some time, though," Rita reminded us all.

Judith made another of her hovering raised hand gestures (I still hadn't figured out what the point of that was, just that somehow it only didn't look ridiculous when _she_ was the one doing it) "I think it's about all we can do at the moment."

The swordsman looked sidelong at the ace. "Yeah, Captain Karol'd start crying if we tried to tackle the Knights head on." And, yes, Karol paled slightly (as much as you could in a hot desert) at the thought.

"How 'bout we make ourselves scarce before people start getting' too curious?" Raven suggested. There were, after all, a whole lot of angry knights not that far away...

"I suppose we'll be on our way, then," said the husband with his arm wrapped around his wife's shoulders.

Yuri blinked, as if he'd forgotten the couple was still with us (...I had) and then shrugged a bit. "Yeah, I'm sure your kids will be so happy to see you. But there won't always be someone around to save you."

"Thank you again for all your help," the wife added, bowing deeply. Her husband mirrored her and then both of them were eagerly on their way into Mantaic. They'd probably only stayed with us that long waiting for a chance to politely thank us one last time.

"Guess we should lay low at the inn for a while." Nobody wanted to argue with that, so the inn it was.

x x x

The Knight of Observation was still there by the front desk. Dude, he was starting to seriously scare me. I was positive it had been the same one every time. Shouldn't these guys, like, alternate shifts or something? Karol kinda squeaked a bit when the knight gave us all a once over and scooted over to hide behind Yuri. He was probably a bit worried about ropes...

Acting as if there wasn't a knight staring at us or a kid cowering at his elbow, Yuri calmly asked the innkeeper for three rooms again. The man blinked and then his expression brightened. "Ohh...! You've returned safe from..." His words died away as he glanced at and away from the knight real fast. "I mean, w-welcome back." Hands shaking a bit, he handed over three sets of keys. One he held onto for a moment when Yuri tried to take it. "This room is already unlocked, and is where your dog has been staying."

The swordsman tilted his head a bit questioningly but said nothing as he claimed the last key. Checking the number scratched into the key, we went to that room first. The maid had just closed its door behind her, a feather duster in her hand providing explanation for her business there.

"Oh!" she exclaimed when she turned around to find our whole group coming up behind her. "You're back! He'll be glad," she looked over her shoulder at the door, so she probably meant Repede. "The Knights didn't like him wandering around town during the day, so we were told to keep him in this room..." Seeing Yuri's scowl at the news, she waved a hand a bit. "But the owner and I have been sneaking him outside whenever we can without the Knights noticing. Though that's usually only possible at night."

Yuri's expression softened and he nodded, "Thanks. We appreciate it."

She beamed at us and bowed slightly before moving on down the hallway, duster bouncing lightly in her hands.

Less than ten seconds after the door was opened Repede was standing alertly in front of Yuri. I actually rubbed my eyes, wondering if he'd learned some sort of teleporting ability while we were gone. "Hey Repede, keep yourself out of trouble?"

Repede barked once.

Group complete at last, we all filed into the room and settled into seats on the beds and chairs provided. There weren't enough for us all (_There's only two beds. Somebody must sleep on the floor...)_, but Yuri just leaned against a wall with Repede his feet. I sat near the head of a bed, resting my shoulders against the wall it was pushed up against. Though nothing of the sort had been said aloud, it was collectively known that we had to talk about what we had just seen outside.

Rita, sitting on the foot of the bed I'd picked, broke into the subject first, "That Cumore punk is a really lousy guy."

"I wonder why they're trying to capture Phaeroh," Raven said from the floor. He'd given up the chair where he'd originally sat to Judith.

"I don't know but..." Estelle was on the edge of the other bed, Karol sitting with in the center with his arms wrapped around his knees. "At this rate, they're going to send all of the adults in the town into the desert."

Even Judith sounded a bit grim with voicing the probable next step, "And once the adults are gone, it might be the children's turn, next."

"No, that can't happen!" the princess said sharply, shooting up onto her feet with the force of the emotion the thought inspired in her. Karol was unbalanced on the bed and nearly fell over backward. "If I just spoke to him as a representative of the imperial family...!"

"Are you forgetting what happened in Heliord?" Estelle had to look away from the krityan, slowly sitting back down again.

"Yeah, Estelle," Karol agreed, repositioning himself. "He didn't care that you were a princess at all."

For a moment Estelle stared quietly at her folded hands, everyone waiting for her to say something. Instead, Rita spoke up again, maybe in some attempt to help her. "So should we help the townspeople or should we help ourselves?"

"Rita..." Estelle said softly.

Judith folded her arms. "Don't you want to know what the Entelexeia is thinking?" she asked the princess. "If so, you should put this whole business with Cumore out of your mind for the time being."

"It's a strange feeling to be agreeing with you, but..." Rita looked from Judith to Estelle. "I think we should focus on meeting Belius for now. Even if we captured Cumore, we wouldn't have the authority to try him for his crimes." I peeked over at Yuri. His head was turned away from the rest of us, staring into space as if trying to work out a complex problem in his head. But I was sure he was listening to every word.

"If we can't do anything about him, we should focus on what we actually can do," the mage concluded.

"If only Flynn were here...!" Estelle said wishfully, proof that she'd had to acknowledge Judith and Rita as being right.

"Flynn..." Karol repeated, "But where is he...?"

"I wish I knew..." Estelle sighed. I simply kept my silence, watching the scene unfold with half lidded eyes.

"I'm sorry, Estelle..." Rita looked down a bit. "We don't mean to be ganging up on you. It disgusts me, too, to imagine that jerk snoring all nice and cozy in his bed right now. But..."

"Rita...I understand."

"Lock up a guy like that, and as soon as he's released he'll just end up doing the same thing again," Judith commented with some detachment. Like she was discussing something totally benign.

Raven yawned a bit, "Yep. You know what they say...the only cure for stupidity is death."

I closed my eyes and tried not to sigh too audibly. To the best of my ability to recall, the conversation had played out exactly as it had in the game. Particularly Raven's rather leading statement that clearly foreshadowed Yuri's next course of action.

The bed creaked as I stood up, drawing everyone's attention to me. I shrugged, "Shower," and left the room.

x x x

About ten or so minutes later I was standing with my head bowed under a running stream of water. My brown hair looked black with the water it had soaked up and hung in a heavy curtain around my face, shutting away everything else as I lost myself in thought.

_People are still being hauled off into the desert. They're still even saying it's Cumore's orders. Are they just going to keep following the commands of a dead man? Until either they find Phaeroh or Flynn shows up? But without Cumore, do they even know _why_ they're searching?_

_Or... _I borrowed a handful of the inn's shampoo supply and started kneading it into my hair. _Or maybe they don't know he's dead._ Mulling that over I rinsed my hair, but decided I couldn't really figure out what was really going on without more information. Anything else would be pure unfounded supposition. _Not that I don't do that a lot already, but yeah..._

_Next item up for debate: what am I going to do about this?_ Just sitting back and letting the game plot take its course was no longer an option what with Cumore having been killed already. Or was it? _Just go to bed and leave Yuri to find out for himself Cumore's dead when he can't find him? Or maybe he'll think Cumore up and ran away._ No matter what, Flynn would show up and kick out the other knights in Mantaic. And things would resume their normal flow, except there'd be less blood on Yuri's hands.

But the whole situation bothered me. So when I left the shower room to Judith for her turn I found myself slipping out the inn's back door. _Another late night walk...wonder what'll happen this time._ Keeping my footsteps as silent as I could (and I'm proud of how nearly silent that is) I crept around the outside of the inn. At every window (except the ones for our own rooms) I cautiously peered in.

_Empty...empty..._ The lack of lights or even breathing in the darkened rooms were enough to know the occupant hadn't just stepped out. _Merchants...empty...big claymore...waitaminute, come again?_ Chase's claymore was leaning against the opposite wall of the window. His brown coat with the ripped bottom hem was also tossed carelessly across the seat of a chair.

Even as I watched the door swung open and the man himself came inside. Not once glancing towards the window, he went directly to his bed and fell back onto it. "About goddamned time," he grumbled, tossing a handful of papers in the air over his head. They fluttered to land in a mess on his bed and the floor like dead leaves in the Fall.

It hit me that I was spying on a friend. Followed by the fact that I was spying on a _guy_ in his _room_. Flushing slightly I moved on quickly. I could still hear him talking in his room after I ducked away, but didn't linger to figure out what he liked to talk to himself about.

The last room apparently belonged to the innkeeper. I caught a glimpse of him with a nightcap on just as he snuffed a candle that had been sitting by his window.

_Huh...in game, Cumore was definitely staying in the inn. Though I always thought that was odd, because game representations of inns only ever have one room full of beds. So if you think about it, Cumore's sprite had been put in the same room as the party and they just used crafty camera angles to hide that._

_Obviously, that would not have been the case here. Oooor, actually, since he's already dead one of those empty rooms might have been his._

_But knowing him, he'd probably have taken the best room in the best house for himself. And one could bet Yuri would realize this as well_.

"Everything sure has to be complicated," I sighed, trying to remember which street the biggest looking house had been on. Perfectly aware that there might not be any point to looking since Cumore, surprise surprise, wasn't going to be there anyway.

I found what was probably the largest and best maintained home in Mantaic. I had an unpleasant feeling of deja vu, recalling the time I had the bright idea to sneak into Ragou's mansion. Not very good memories.

..._Kay, we're gonna move on from that and just check this place out nice and quick_. After testing some of the windows, I found one that was already open. Climbing in was relatively easy. And then realized I was more or less breaking and entering, and running into any knights would be...inadvisable. _Heh. Breaking into stranger's house without any internal moral dilemma. I've changed a bit since coming here._

I'd barely taken three steps into whatever room I'd broken into when I heard a heavy thump and something breaking from somewhere else in the house. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at odds with a rising lump of anxiety in my throat I rushed to the door as fast as I could in the dark, still striving to make as little noise as possible. Wouldn't want to give away where I was and get jumped from behind.

Because I could hear the sounds of a fight somewhere else in the house. And between the distinctive sounds of air and wood being split by blades (and hopefully no flesh) I could hear low voices, words indistinct but for a few hisses that might have been someone cursing. Something broke again, this time with the unmistakable shatter of glass. Silence followed, ominous in its promise of finality.

I paused, standing still with my hand reaching for the doorknob to the room I'd followed the noises to. Feeling a touch sick while trying _not_ to imagine the maaany possible sights I _could_ imagine finding behind the door, I steeled my resolve and turned the handle. There was a soft click and the door swung in just so slightly. Taking one last breath to steady myself, I crouched down low and opened the door fully, head ducked so anyone standing by ready to ambush would be aiming high and miss as I swooped in and to the side.

But there wasn't any ambush waiting for snoops to stick their noses in. Nor were there any fighters facing off against each other. Wondering if maybe I was in the wrong room after all, I turned slowly with my eyes wide open to catch any sign of something amiss. Something crunched under my boot, making me look down. Kneeling, I felt tentatively with my hand and found the broken remains of a vase that had been knocked to the floor. Much of it was no better than dust as if it had been ground under somebody's heel.

Eyes better adjusted to the dark, I noted something darker lying on the floor near the wall. I reached out and grabbed at it, finding it was long and smooth. Sliding my hand along it, I blanched as I realized I recognized it as a sheath for a long and narrow blade. Without a sword inside it.

I recalled,_ I heard glass breaking_, and looked up sharply at the window. The heavy curtains were stirring in a night breeze, faint light from the barrier lighting a rectangular patch on the floor. A few pieces of glass glittered in that patch of light and I suspected there was even more lying on the ground outside.

The vase shard I was still holding slid from my fingers to drop to the floor, probably breaking further on impact, as I rushed to the window. My hands reached out to grab the sill, though with a hiss I had to gingerly reposition the one not holding the sheath (yes I was still holding onto it) so it wouldn't be cut by the remaining glass, and leaned out as far as I could. Looking around wildly, eyes wide to take in as much as they could, it was movement in my peripheral rather than an actual figure that caught my attention.

Feeling dreadfully certain that I already knew what I'd find if I followed, the small seed of uncertainty planted by Cumore's early death had enough draw to pull me out that window. My tougher pants and turtleneck protecting me from the glass still in the wooden frame, I climbed through and dropped to the ground outside. My boots had hardly touched down before I was off in a stumbling run, feet nearly slipping out from under me before I remembered how sandy the soil was.

In hindsight it isn't the fact that knights came seemingly out of nowhere that was surprising, but that I nearly instinctively had kept to the street shadows before even consciously registering their appearance. Perhaps somewhere in my subconscious I'd already reasoned that Flynn's men must be in Mantaic waiting for the right moment to make their move and seize control from Cumore. Which, gamewise, coincidentally occurred during Yuri's latest vigilante act.

_Even without Cumore, it's still the same! Why is it still the same?_ I gnawed my lower lip uneasily and swerved into an alley a group of Flynn's knights. They had just burst from a door ahead in the street, forcibly dragging some of Cumore's knights with them. Since I obviously wasn't a knight of either faction, I probably had nothing to fear from them catching me. But I didn't want to be slowed down by somebody stopping me to ask why I was running around like a madwoman after dark.

Unfortunately, it turned out that it wasn't an alley I'd detoured into but a shallow alcove. "Scheisse!" With no time to think I reflexively threw my hands up in front of me while my feet tried to grind to a stop despite my momentum's insistence that I keep going forward. Instinctively my eyes squeezed shut as I braced for impact.

The expected jolt of running into a wall never came. Sandy dirt rasped under my boot as it slid to a stop, more gradually than one would expect given the circumstances. My hands felt nothing but empty space around me. ...Empty space and a familiar heat in my left hand that I had only just noticed.

Eyes flying open, I looked around in bafflement. I was in a dead end alley, presumably on the other side of the wall I had just tried to meet face first. The warmth was already seeping away from my left hand, and I absently began to massage it through the glove with my right, briefly tucking the sheath I'd picked up under an arm. "Poor...poor city planning..." I murmured aloud. There was still adrenaline humming through me as my brain tried to catch up with me. _Holy fucking crap. I think I just ran through a wall_.

With a shuddering breath I shook the thought from my head and trotted to the mouth of the alley to check for knights belonging to either captain. Unexpected detour and delay aside, there was somewhere I was trying to be.

I got there too late. I knew as soon as I saw Yuri standing at atop the edge of the largest pit of quicksand, just outside the town borders. His unsheathed katana held in a lax grip, barrier light gleaming coldly off the the line of metal. I became overly conscious of the sheath I was still carrying.

Flynn was behind him, posture tense and radiating a quiet anger. He was only five feet away from his darker counterpart, a distance that could easily be closed by a sudden, final rush. I even saw, from my nifty hiding place behind one of the many convenient palms, Flynn's gauntleted hand clench his own sword's hilt as he no doubt considered that scenario.

But his hand loosened and dropped wearily to his side.

"My people have taken control of things here," he said instead, the words terse and to the point as if he were reporting to another officer. "The residents of this town won't suffer any longer."

"That ought to put you one step closer to your next promotion." With Yuri's biting sarcasm, I could almost swear I saw the distance between them growing wider. _Really, they're supposed to be best friends...? But I suppose if they weren't, Flynn wouldn't hesitate to take Yuri down, and Yuri wouldn't be so disappointed to see Flynn following orders to fight his way up the ladder_.

Flynn turned away, cape-streamer things rising into air and then settling on his back again. "Yuri, we need to talk later."

"I know..."

Flynn didn't wait for any more. What needed to be said would come out soon enough. "I'll be waiting...down at the lake." And the knight captain returned to the town with the strength of purpose keeping him straight and tall.

Yuri stood silently in place after Flynn left to finish his business with restoring control of Mantaic to its people. Or a more suitable Empire appointed magistrate (I forget how that turned out...). The whole time I stood by my tree, watching, feeling as if my feet were rooted into the ground. When Yuri finally turned around and walked back into Mantaic I lowered my head so that my hair fell forward to hide my pale face. There was no indication that he'd noticed me as he passed by.

"Coward," I whispered to myself, _at_ myself as I clutched the sheath in my hand even tighter. Even so, I stood and waited. I waited as lights flickered on in windows and the first sleepy townspeople stuck their heads outside doors and windows. I waited as some grew bold enough to investigate the night's commotion.

It was when the jubilant cry of, "Magistrate Cumore is gone!" and a round of cheers went up that I finally moved. More and more people were coming out of their houses, hastily dressed and with Flynn's name and praises on their lips. Word was spreading like fire that Cumore had fled when he'd heard Flynn had come, and his lieutenant had gone missing too.

_Yeah. Doubt they'll turn up again. Ever._

Unnoticed in all the excitement I slipped through the crowds and into the inn. As I'd expected the group was gone. Each had probably joined the masses out in the streets, learning the news and getting drawn into the impromptu festivities already kicking off. Without anyone to observe my actions I found the guys' room. With one last quick glance to make sure no one had stayed behind, I left the sheath propped against the wall Yuri had been leaning against earlier.

Even as I left it there, guilt in my manner like that of a thief with a conscience, I knew it was a silent admission to myself. That I was going to keep to my charade of ignorance. Simply because I couldn't work up the nerve on my own to tell the truth.

x x x

Seem like an abrupt place to stop? Yeah...it even makes the chapter shorter than usual (With a long author's note to boot). But it seemed like a good place, especially since I decided I want the next part to be in the next chapter. WHICH I swear won't take nearly as long. Promise. I've been looking forward to the next part, actually.

...Shower scene. That somehow doesn't have Raven poking his nose in (Letha of course locks the door). But you know, lots of people like to think and try to sort themselves out in the shower.

If there's confusion over whatever the crap happened in this chapter, don't worry. Letha will sit herself down and try to figure it out soon enough, and what she doesn't get will be beat over her head another way.

And "scheisse" is the German equivalent of "shit" (though I'm not positive that second "e" is supposed to be there... Been awhile since that class).


	47. Chapter 47: Sing What You Can't Say

__I am actually at work right now. Third shift employee has some life issues beyond his control, and there wasn't anyone else free to cover for him. So when my shift ended, I stayed here. In the gas station. And I'll be here all night for a double shift.

Think of the Moolah and Karmic value! (Said employee will take one of my shifts next week off my hands so I'll have an extra day off. And everyone thinks I'm such a great person for agreeing with no grumbling or whining.)

But night shifts are pretty quiet, so my brother brought my lap top over so I can stay entertained (and awake) and I took the opportunity to finish this chapter. Another short one, but omfg, I was cackling my head off and have so much I like about this chapter. Don't think it's my best or anything, I just reeeally like it. :D

Angelic:

I'm not denying there is _fluff_. _Fluff_ is not exclusive to romance. ;p There is family type fluff and friendship type fluff and cute little animal type fluff.

Yup, Letha went through a wall. No one is more surprised by that than her.

Kyushen:

I am diligently working on this story! When I'm not being lazy and procrastinating (blame that third shift employee who's been loaning me vampire romance books [not Twilight, he wouldn't even touch those]). And here we've gotten to something I've just been dying to finally get written out and posted. Have fun in your classes~

x x x

Chapter 47: Sing What You Can't Say

x x x

The party was going full force when I stepped back out from the inn. From the sheer number of people on the streets I had to surmise that _everyone_ in town (and not still wandering the desert looking for Phaeroh...hopefully Flynn sent people out to look for them) was joining in. Cumore's knights were all being shunted off to the sides in groups of three or four (probably keeping them from gathering all together so they couldn't organize a plan to fight back) kept under the guard of Flynn's men. I had to crack a smile when I saw a little kid standing just safely out of reach of the bound knights, energetically punching and kicking the air in their direction. _Bit like Yuffie from Final Fantasy..._

With so many locals out and letting loose, I couldn't pick my own friends out of the chaos. I did catch a glimpse of Raven with a small child, who actually might have been Alph, sitting on his shoulders while more children swarmed around his knees. And Rita getting swept away by a young man into a group that had started dancing. Some unseen band had pulled together and were playing cheerful music that put me in the mind of a renaissance fair.

I couldn't get drawn into the revelry like they had. I didn't _want_ to. I wanted to find a dark corner to curl up in. I'd be back in the room Judith and I were sharing, hiding under my blankets if I could. But there was someone I wanted to talk to, asap.

Doing my best not to step on anyone's toes, I slipped through gaps I found in the milling crowd while trying to pick out that single person from the throng. A bonfire was being coaxed into roaring life, easily as tall as I was already, and its flickering light washed everything in its reddish glow. I found myself getting jumpy at how it made several people look like they had red hair. Kept making me think Alastor was hanging around.

I was momentarily nonplussed when I realized a knight not all that faraway actually _did_have orange hair. She turned a bit so I could see her face in profile, with a braid like my own but considerably shorter, and I realized it was actually Sodia. "Sodia!" I called, happy for a familiar face that might be willing to spare me a moment and some help, "Hey, Sodia!"

The lieutenant looked around for whoever was calling her and finally her eyes lit upon me, expression twisting into professional sourism. By which I mean she looked like she had a sour taste in her mouth, but was putting on her official polite and respectable face and hoping no one would notice. _Right, she didn't form that great an impression of me last time we met_.

"You. You're one of Yuri Lowell's companions." Her tone clearly implied that she did not consider the association a very good endorsement. Then it seemed as if something softened about her. Before I could wonder what that was about she asked, "Could you possibly tell me where my Captain is?"

I blinked, "Um, no, can't say that I know." _I think it's a bit too early for that meeting with Yuri at the lake, though he could be there already I guess. Still, its important for them to hash out with each other why they're so pissed with each other's methods_. But I felt a bit bad about hiding that from Sodia. She was only trying to do her job, perhaps a bit more enthusiastically and hot headedly than called for, but hey, I'd had little experience with her other than her Yuri bashing moments. _Okay, don't think about that or you'll get pissed at her. Instead, remember what you're _trying_ to do right now._

"Um," I felt a bit shy suddenly. Asking Sodia for help when, from her perspective, we barely even ranked as acquaintances seemed a bit presumptuous. She probably had her hands full as it was, even if it was following Alexei's orders. I shook my head, irritated that I was getting distracted again. "Sodia, have you seen a man about so tall," I carved a line in the air about half a foot above my head with one hand, "long, lightish brown hair, maybe wearing a big old leather coat that looks too hot for the desert?"

The female knight gave me a level look, perhaps wondering why I was bothering her with this when she had to find her captain to do more important work. Or maybe not, since she was doing pretty much the same thing herself trying to find Flynn. "I believe I saw a young man of that description helping with the preparations for fireworks."

_Huh?_ "Fireworks?"

"Yes, it seems they had some in storage that were supposed to be used for a local festival. But the festival was canceled when there weren't enough adults left to organize it." A touch of steel entered her voice at that last part. Then, much to my wonder, she actually smiled. "Now would be as good a time as any for them to celebrate, so the fireworks won't go to waste after all."

"Uh, right," I realized I was staring, her smile had caught me so off guard. "Do you know where they're setting them up?"

Sodia nodded and turned to point towards the lake. "For obvious safety reasons."

"Thanks!" I waved a bit as I trotted off and away from the crowd. Once I broke free from the mass of bodies the night felt a good five degrees cooler, maybe more, making me shiver lightly. When I reached the lake's beach I looked around for the pyrotechnicians planning to blow up the night with colorful explosions.

The people busily setting up the fireworks displays were only dark silhouettes to my eyes with a pile of crates off to the side. Just watching them I couldn't figure out who was who. I walked up, consciously trying to make the sand crunch noisily under my feet so I wouldn't accidentally sneak up and surprise them into setting off fireworks in our own faces.

"'Scuse me," I called.

Someone grunted as he pried the lid off a crate with a crowbar, "Yeah, miss?"

"Is there someone called Chase here?"

There were hoots of laughter and what sounded like somebody getting slapped on the back. "Hey, boy! Your girlfriend's come to pick you up!"

"Ain't you a lucky dog!"

"Run along now, kid, don't keep her waiting!"

One of the shadows detached itself an approached me, looking a bit lopsided until I realized he was still halfway facing them to yell back, "Knock it off! We're not like that!" Which got more laughs and catcalls.

"Aw, don't be shy!"

"If you say it like that, your girl's gonna get mad at you!"

Chase was close enough for me to finally make out somewhat clearly in the barrier light. He bobbed his head apologetically when he joined me. "Sorry, they're just old timers who _don't know what they're talking about!_" His voice rose and he turned back again to make sure his words carried back to the men with the fireworks. All he got was another round of laughter in response. "Why do I keep running into those types?" he muttered.

"Meh, no big deal," I shrugged. "Not like any of them believe it anyway."

He winced, "Ouch. That hurts."

I patted his shoulder, "There, there." We fell into step, walking slowly so as not to trip on anything before we reached the light of the bonfire. "So, uh..." My head dipped down as my eyes fixed themselves on the tips of my boots. All I could see of Chase was the swirling hem of his leather coat. "I wanted to ask you about something..."

"Yeah? Shoot." His tone was agreeable and open. I took a deep breath and plowed forward.

"The last night I was here, Cumore really...I really killed him, didn't I?" My hand clasped behind my back, gripping each other for support. "I wasn't just panicking too much, and overlooked him being alive, right? He..." I jumped a bit when I felt a hand drop on my shoulder. Looking up wildly, my momentary fear that some knight had overheard and was arresting me was dispelled when I verified that it was Chase's hand.

"Yeah, Cumore was dead. No doubt to it," his voice was soft, without reproach. "By now he should be buried under more sand than anyone's going to want to dig up."

"But-" I looked away, toward the people I could see dancing with the bonfire as a backdrop. "Why did the knights continue what they were doing here? They acted as if Cumore was still alive and giving them orders."

"I think that was Blakely's doing."

"Cumore's lieutenant?"

"Yeah," We'd reached the outskirts of the celebrating and found that benches and stools had been dragged out of the houses to provide seating. Without needing to discuss it, we sat down together on a bench that was little more than a wooden plank on legs. We probably looked like a young couple whispering sweet nothings which, while a bit embarrassing, meant anyone who noticed us would just grin and move on to give us some privacy. And if they eavesdropped for some juicy gossip, they'd hopefully think we were talking politics or something.

"From what I saw, Blakely was just as self centered and ambitious as Cumore," Chase was explaining. "Cumore, however, came from a higher place in the nobility, so he got the better position as a matter of course. I guess when Cumore never came back to his quarters Blakely saw the chance to assume command. He probably thought that if he _said_ Cumore'd gone missing he'd just get another new officer like Cumore to boss him around." A pair of happily shrieking children ran past us.

"So instead he took over the search for, uh, whatever, and told the other knights he was relaying Cumore's orders. No one seemed to question that the snob didn't want to come out of his room or speak to anyone besides his next in command. If Flynn's knights didn't come along he was probably planning on completing the mission in order to prove that he deserved the position of captain himself."

"You've got it all figured out, don't you," I said, unintentionally letting some bitterness creep into my voice. "So why didn't you try to do something about it?"

"Letha," his voice was heavy, regret and and practicality mixing with the tired patience one explains something obvious to a child with, "what was I supposed to do? Barge in with sword swinging and waving my crossbow around while yelling that I'd seen Cumore get killed the other night? Hell, they'd lock me up if it came out that I hid the body."

"I dunno..." I pulled my knees up, balancing on the bench as I wrapped my arms around them. "I dunno anymore...why'd you help me anyway?" I squeaked a bit when his arm wrapped around my shoulders, my feet planting themselves on the ground again so I wouldn't fall over from surprise. Though that was purely reflexive, since I probably wouldn't fall over with Chase hugging me with one arm like that.

"I dunno," he echoed me. "Just something about the way you looked at me all scared. For a moment it looked like you were my little sister and had gotten into trouble again."

"You have a sister?" He hadn't mentioned her before.

I couldn't miss the way he stiffened since I was still leaning against him. "Yeah, I did. She's...not in this world."

"Oh, I'm sorry..." I could have kicked myself. The silence was stretching out awkwardly.

Raven stumbled over at that point, reeling and oblivious to the tension of the scene he'd interrupted. "What're ya doin' over here?" he hooked a three legged stool with a foot and dragged it closer to where we were sitting before plopping down onto it. In each hand he had a mug and, judging by the way a little sloshed out of each when he sat, they were nearly full.

"Youngsters like you two should be out inna middle of the fun," the older archer gestured towards the group dancing around the fire, spilling a bit more from a mug in the process. "Unless yer up ta somethin' fun by yerselves," he finished suggestively with a cheeky grin.

"Not really," I said blandly.

He stared at me and then made a noise rather like a disappointed raspberry (never why they called it that). "Aw c'mon, yer not even gonna try?"

"Try what?" Chase asked suspiciously.

"Normally, she," Raven jabbed a finger in my direction (accompanied by another spill from the other mug), "would make some smart-alecky comeback! Like," here he took a breath and pitched his voice higher, "'Of course, Raven, we're plannin' on puttin' bugs in the kid's bed,' or, 'Chase 'n I were just talkin' about those books I told ya 'bout,' or somethin'."

"'Books'?" Chase repeated curiously.

I didn't elaborate for him, "Seems you've already got my end of the conversation covered, so I'll just take the night off."

"There, ya see?" Raven chattered excitedly at Chase. I rolled my eyes and slumped a bit. I didn't want to have a battle of witty comebacks. My mind felt strained enough. "Oh, she's grumpy! Give 'er some of this."

"Raven, sir, I don't think-"

"Who needs ta think? Just a few sips ta lighten her up." One of Raven's mugs was pressed into my hand, the texture of glazed ceramic solid and familiar in my grip. I ran my fingers around the smooth polished rim, feeling a bit of memory stirring in the back of my mind.

I closed my eyes, hoping to catch that fleeting thought.

…

. . .

_Running my fingers along the rim of a pot, testing to see if I'd gotten all of the nicks and bumps out of the slightly moist white clay. Looking up and grinning at the blonde girl across the table who eyed my work jealously. Even though her pot was nicer than mine. It was the principle of the matter, I'd found a more creative way to meet the criteria._

_She caught my self satisfied look. "You cheated."_

"_Did not," I denied smugly. "Mr. V even said it was alright. Exactly the kind of thing the project was supposed to encourage us to do." I picked up the thin metal plate to polish a rough spot out of one of the arches I'd built into the side of my pot. Those arches added over two inches to the overall height, easily putting it past the minimum requirement._

"_Cheater." I smiled even wider at her, at-_

-at...I don't know who.

But the corners of my eyes felt damp.

Realizing I was staring into the depths of my mug, I threw my head back and downed a large gulp. It nearly went down the wrong way and I started hacking at the burning sensation. Fortunately somebody took the mug away before I could accidentally dump its contents all over myself.

When I could breath all right again I settled myself against Chase's side. He no longer had an arm wrapped around my shoulders and was apparently doing some male bonding with Raven. They had a mug each and apparently Chase had asked some question about Altosk.

There was warmth in my stomach that was slowly spreading to my extremities, relaxing anxiety tensed muscles in its wake.

_So, if Chase is right, Blakely took Cumore's place. His role in the game. When Yuri went to find Cumore to mete out his own justice, he found Blakely instead._

_And now they're both dead in the quicksand._

This bothered me. Not just the knowledge that people had died, in cold blood even, but what it might mean about any changes I made, intentionally or otherwise. _I definitely changed something. Cumore died early because _I_ was here. But the events didn't change: the people still suffered, Yuri still stained his hands with more blood, and Flynn was needed to properly liberate the town._

_So what will happen to other events that I willfully try to change? When I try to save Belius, will I succeed only for her to die some other way? Are we really walking a set path that ultimately won't change, despite the small deviations?_

_Is my life ruled by the plot of a game?_

I snatched the mug from Chase's hand and took another gulp, this time not choking and noting that it tasted rather like hot cider. Chase protested while Raven laughed, and I ignored what either of them was saying. Now the warm relaxed feeling seemed to rise slowly up to my head, numbing the brooding thoughts so that I could finally have some relief, however temporary.

When Chase reclaimed his mug I didn't object, already occupied with how the top of the fire reached up to tickle and dance against the night sky. Burning hot light in contrast with the cool glow of barrier and stars, gleaming elegantly in the distance.

I really wished I still had my mp3 player in one piece. There was that makeshift band going somewhere, but we couldn't hear them from where we were sitting. Music helped me when I wanted to think, or distance myself from thinking, or change my mood, or wallow even deeper. Music connected me to some deeper level of creativity, shared by anyone who could be bothered to look.

"Imma music addict suffering from withdrawal," I stated solemnly, wanting to make sure the guys understood and shared my melancholic mood. I think I interrupted whatever they'd been talking about.

Raven snorted at me, "Why don'cha do somethin' instead of complainin' about it?" I sat quietly while mulling his words over, and concluded it was a good suggestion.

I straightened in my seat, unbalancing Chase who'd gotten used to my weight on one side. Ignoring that, I sighted on a dark point in the sky across the streets, devoid of barrier or stars. And began to sing.

"_Hope is beauty,  
personified  
at her feet, the world,  
hypnotized_

_"A million flashes,_  
_a million smiles_  
_and on the catwalk_  
_she flaunts her style_

_"But in this heart of darkness_  
_our hope lies lost and torn_  
_all fame like love is fleeting_  
_when there's no hope anymore_

_"Pain and glory_  
_hand in hand_  
_a sacrifice_  
_the highest price_

_"Like the poison in her arm_  
_like a whisper, she was gone_  
_like when angels fall_

_"And in this heart of darkness_  
_our hope lies on the floor_  
_all love like fame is fleeting_  
_when there's no hope anymore_

_"Like a poison in her arm_  
_like a whisper, she was gone_  
_like an angel_  
_angels fall"_

As if a switch had been flipped somewhere in my brain, I latched onto the word "angel" and threw myself right into another song with barely a pause to take another breath.

"_Sparkling angel I believed  
You were my savior in my time of need.  
Blinded by faith I couldn't hear  
All the whispers, the warnings so clear.  
_

"_I see the angels,  
I'll lead them to your door.  
There's no escape now,  
No mercy no more.  
No remorse cause I still remember  
The smile when you tore me apart._

_"You took my heart,_  
_Deceived me right from the start._  
_You showed me dreams,_  
_I wished they'd turn into real._  
_You broke your promise and made me realize._  
_It was all just a lie."_

I had long since forgotten that there was anyone else there. It was just me, music, and the dark void between the uncaring stars.

"_Sing what you can't say  
Forget what you can't play  
Hasten to drown into beautiful eyes  
Walk within my poetry, this dying music  
- My loveletter to nobody_

_"Never sigh for better world_  
_It's already composed, played and told_  
_Every thought the music I write_  
_Everything a wish for the night"_

x x x

"_When the sun has gone I see you  
beautiful and haunting but cold  
like the blade of a knife so sharp so sweet  
nobody knows your heart_

_"All of your sorrow, grief and pain_  
_locked away in the forest of the night_  
_Your secret heart belongs to the world_  
_of the things that sigh in the dark_  
_of the things that cry in the dark."_

I'd no clue how long I'd been singing, or how many songs I'd gone through. The rare occasion I took a break was only long enough to take another sip as a mug just presented itself in my hand.

At some point what came to the front of my mind was the first line of a poignant fancover someone had done, complete with free online downloads and lyrics in the video descriptions. Some music is just so awesome, people will invent the words in order to sing along.

"_Look into the sky  
Can you see the moon across the ocean  
Coming close to me  
I can hear the melody_

_"Cry into the void_  
_Let my voice become the hand that reaches_  
_Out to you and leads_  
_To my long lost memory_

_"Carry me home_  
_I lost my way on roads ever weaving_  
_Home_  
_Where darkness fades and hearts are ever believing_  
_Carry me home_  
_I close my eyes and cling to you ever dreaming_  
_Find me_  
_Oh don't forget the child for whom you are grieving_

_"Voice that calls from there_  
_And the footsteps of its fallen angels_  
_Now becomes the beat_  
_Of my heart so incomplete_

_"Every night I bathe_  
_In the blue that washes over me_  
_And brings me to my knees_  
_In this longing I believe_

_"Carry me home_  
_I lost my way on roads ever weaving_  
_Home_  
_Where darkness fades and hearts are ever believing_  
_Carry me home_  
_I close my eyes and cling to you ever dreaming_  
_Find me_  
_Oh don't forget the child for whom you are grieving"_

I stopped finally and sucked in a breath, realizing I felt light headed. The higher notes were hard for me to handle, my preference being a somewhat lower range... God, I missed my player. It was less tiring.

The sound of clapping and voices speaking all at once, sense lost in the babble, brought me back to the where and when and the _Oh meh gawd, people heard that_. Quite a few at that. Where the three of us had originally been seated in a rather unnoticeable corner of the party, a semicircle of curious onlookers had formed and were trying to coax me into singing something else (some calling out what I had to assume were the titles of favorite, Terca Lumireis songs as requests).

My blushing face felt hot in my hands. _I won't drink anything that even _smells_ like cider again. At least not when it comes from Raven_. Thankfully my head was already starting to clear some, probably thanks to my embarrassment.

"Heeey, not bad!" the culprit crowed. "Put out a collection box or somethin' and ya could make some dough ta pay back yer robbery victim with," and he gave Chase a hearty thump on the shoulder. I raised my head from my hands so that I could swipe Chase's mug again and chucked it at him. It bounced off his shoulder, leaving him to bemoan the waste of good drink and the stain it was bound to leave in his jacket.

Once Chase got his laughter under control (and at least he was tipsier than I had been, though not by much and certainly not enough considering how the number of mugs had multiplied) he wiped a tear from his eye and grinned at me. "Hey, ya know that last one sounded sortuv familiar," he commented, words a little slurred but still understandable. "Though I dun think I rec'gnize the words at all..." a lined creased his forehead as he frowned slightly, probably trying see if he could remember them after all.

"No, the song's originally an instrumental," I explained. "The lyrics were written by a fan of Final Fantasy IX." _Hmm? Something..._

Chase reached a hand behind his neck and cracked it slightly, making me wince a bit reflexively. "Number nine? Wasn't that the one with the guy with a monkey tail?"

For some reason, my feeling that something was wrong grew stronger. "Yeah, Zidane. I like his character, someone optimistic and cheerful to break away from the borderline emo heroes Cloud and Squall."

He shrugged. "I dunno 'bout Squall, but Cloud's not so bad if you get him talkin'."

"What are you guys talkin' about?" Raven looked at us, one to the other. "'Nother story, Letha? Or ya talkin' about some friends of yers?" My mouth fell open, as I was about to explain and was cut short by the lingering warm relaxed sensation getting washed away by cold realization.

It took Chase a bit longer. "Final Fantasy is a popular series of games that...that..." his words coming to a halting stop, the young man looked at me with eyes gone wide. Bet he'd just gotten a nasty wake up call to his senses too.

"Chaaase..." I was literally shaking, fingers twitching as if wanting to strangle him for hiding this. Or for letting it slip in front of witnesses. I couldn't say which. "Were you planning on telling me about this?"

"Oh, fuck me," he swore, slumping over so that his hands dangled between his knees towards the ground. Which was enough to tell me that _no_, he _hadn't_, and that he'd probably known for awhile that we were the same.

"Dammit Chase," I growled, "Don't tell me you were-" He sat up.

"Hold these." Chase thrust a pair of the empty mugs that had been lying forgotten on the ground into my hands, startling me enough that I unthinkingly obeyed. Then before I could regain control, which I was trying to figure out how I'd lost it so easily, he shoved my shoulders. I fell back, aikido training and real fighting experience kicking in so that I managed to roll backwards without breaking my skull or neck.

Rolling onto my feet, I flung the mugs away with flaring anger as I saw Chase already making good the distraction to escape. "Dammit, come back!" I roared, sprinting after him as fast as I could. As I'd seen once before, the man was fast on his feet and had better stamina than me. But I had a whole bunch of questions and like hell would I let him get away without answering.

In the crowd I actually had the advantage. He was bigger, even if people saw him running like a pack of monsters were on his heels they couldn't make enough room for him to get away in a timely fashion. I, however, was often not noticed until I was pushing past someone. But my smaller size made it easy to slip through and anyone who took a good look at the pissed off fire in my eyes wisely chose not to get in my way.

Closer I got until I could nearly reach out and grab a sleeve. But he'd managed that head start and broke away from the crowd with a new burst of speed just before I could nab him by the coat. Cursing, I stumbled out of a gap that opened between two people and lit out after him again.

We were running down the street that took us by the inn, Yuri happening to step out just then. Seeing us he stopped abruptly and swung his sword so that the sheath flew off again. Probably thought we were running from danger, not in the middle of a chase..._Godammit!_

I shrieked, "Yuri! Don't let that Godamned asshole of a weasel get away!"

Realizing his danger of being caught in a pincer, Chase tried to cut a sharp turn and run down a side street. But a blue arc of aer cut just ahead of him, forcing him to pull up short before running right into an Azure Edge. Which gave Yuri enough time to close the shorter distance between them and stop Chase from running again by the simple expedient of holding the sharp edge of his katana to his neck.

"So," Yuri said conversationally, casual tone entirely out of place, "either of you gonna tell me why I'm threatening a friend of yours?" He never took his eyes off of Chase, but the question seemed to be aimed at me.

"I wanna know too," we all started with surprise when there was another voice (Chase seemed hopeful for a second) until we realized it was just Raven. "They were jus' talkin' 'bout music and weird stories when they both flipped out like that." The archer was leaning against a house across the street from our staggered trio.

"How'd you get here so fast?" Chase asked in honest confusion.

Raven smirked, "Too bad ya didn't know the same shortcuts I do, huh boy? Us old folks need to know how ta get around."

Yuri was giving me a look that said there better be more to the situation than what Raven had outlined. "You're practically out for his blood because of an argument over some made up story?"

"He lied to me." I didn't look at Yuri, aware I probably sounded hypocritical to him. I lied all the time, and we both knew it.

Chase sighed, "You know why I had to."

"But you lied to _me_," I pressed. "You lied about _home_. And you should also know damned well why that pisses me off."

That apparently struck a chord in him as he visibly flinched. Yuri's sword followed the motion, his eyes widened and then narrowing as he started catching onto the underlying meaning of what we were saying. Raven didn't know enough to keep up, but was no doubt keeping eyes and ears open for any tidbit that might interest the knights.

"I'm sorry about that, Letha," and either Chase was a really good actor or the regret in his voice was real, "I've been dying to be able to talk with someone from Earth again, myself." I went rigid, and he shrugged sheepishly, "And now I've ticked you off even more."

I crossed my arms over my chest, "What was your first clue?"

"Hold up now," Raven interrupted, "Just what is 'Earth'?" I bit my lower lip, _So much for them overlooking that part_...

Despite the katana menacing his throat Chase shifted his posture to one more relaxed, thumbs hooking into his belt. "Just a quaint little rock. Home to people so strange they're normal."

"Funny, aren't you," Yuri started to say, but what came next was forgotten when, with a thrum of displaced air, a red fletched arrow planted itself in the ground at his feet. The dark haired swordsman skipped back a few steps, attention drawn upwards to track the quarrel's trajectory.

Chase seized the opening granted with the sword no longer threatening him, dropping his right shoulder as he lunged forward. His shoulder drove into Yuri's solar plexus, knocking the air from him in a grunt as the larger swordsman bowled him over.

"Yuri!" I cried, running forward to try and help. Raven had missed most of the exchange, having spun to face the unknown archer with his own hands reaching for an absent bow, probably left behind at the inn. He spat a curse and gave up the fruitless gesture when I had called out, turning back to Chase and Yuri rolling in the dirt.

Chase made good his initial advantage to quickly push himself back onto his knees, then feet, and withdraw before Yuri could recover enough to seriously fight back. I made to charge after him myself (like hell would I let him go) but stopped short when he leveled a sword directly at me. Yuri's sword. He held it easy in one hand, the slim blade no doubt lighter and faster than the claymore he was accustomed to.

"Well met again, Miss Vitae, Master Lowell," the familiar voice made me look up sharply, to the rooftop of the house behind Chase. "And well met for the first time, Master...Raven." Standing on the slanted roof (making it look as casual as standing on a level field) was Alastor. He was holding an elegantly crafted recurve bow, roughly as long as Karol was tall, handling it gingerly as if reluctant to make more contact with it than necessary.

"You..." There was recognition in Yuri's voice. "You're the guy from Caer Bocram. The one who tricked Letha!" Chase raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me. I just glared back and it went down with a slight shrug to his shoulders. His hair had come loose from its tie during his scuffle with Yuri, and most of it hung loose and dust covered around his shoulders.

"One and the same," Alastor dipped a bow, and I noted with some relief that his wings weren't in sight. There was enough I'd be forced to explain once this fiasco was over with already. "You do me honor by remembering."

"Sure I do," heavy on the sarcasm, "Now what do you want with us this time?"

Alastor tilted his head and beamed at us, glasses managing to pick up a glint of reflected light from somewhere (maybe the barrier). "In truth, this time I," he leaped from the roof and landed behind Chase, his form making the jump appear effortless and graceful in an unmistakably inhuman manner, "am executing a rescue operation."

"Hey, stop!" I lurched forward to try and jump them, pin them down by force if I had to, and to hell with the sword. But Chase took a step back from my reach while flipping the katana over in his grip, then stabbed the blade point first into the ground. It wasn't much in the way of a barrier, but I had to swerve to get around it, and those few seconds counted. He was close enough that all Alastor needed to do was reach out to grab Chase's shoulder in one hand-

_Snap_

-and they were gone with a snap of Alastor's fingers. My own fingers swept futilely through the air where Chase had just been, hardly a second after they'd vanished.

x x x

Sylph: Hey Chase, get over here and help me and Letha explain what happened last chapter.

Chase: Yes ma'am.

Sylph: Good! Now let's have some friendly interactions, and general partying.

Chase: Sure?

Sylph: Let's have both of you get a bit tipsy!

Chase: No complaints here.

Sylph: And now-! Run for your life before Letha stabs you in the spleen!

Chase: Wha-oh fu-

Eheheheheh.

Now, I know you've all been forming theories about Chase as you gradually grew suspicious of him. How many of you guessed this much?

Songs:

First used, "Hope Vol. II" by Apocalyptica

Second, "Angels" by Within Temptation

Third, "Dead Boy's Poem" by Nightwish

Fourth, "Mononoke Hime" or "Princess Mononoke" from the movie of the same name (Booyah, Hayao Miyazaki films!)

Fifth, "The Place I'll Return to Someday" original soundtrack from Final Fantasy 9 and fan lyrics by Katethegreat19. Check her out on youtube (I didn't really ask permission...but I don't think she'd mind just sharing the words. _If_ I were to make a recording of it, then I'd be sure to ask first.)

I hope you all didn't mind bearing with the miniconcert. Those songs actually provide some insight to how Letha feels right now, even if she doesn't realize that she's projecting. To be fair, Chase, Raven, and I all got her a tad bit drunk first. But I tried to pare them down a bit so they wouldn't take up more space than they needed to.

I still have a good few hours left here before I can go home and sleep. I'll probably get the next chapter started...maybe write a few drabbles or an omake...


	48. Chapter 48: Talk, Talk, and Girl Talk?

I got my new lap top! Banzai! Now I just need to make the Big Move and put everything I want from my old computer onto this one. (I'm using the default WordPad program, which doesn't have any spell check that I can find...)

And Chase has his own story!

There's been some lively activity in the formsprings (including Letha going on a brief rampage through Chase's formspring) and interest in what Chase was up to before current events. So I decided to get started on his story earlier than I originally planned, and post it for all his fans. FTaBV is still my main project. Chase's story (LET THE STORM WINDS BLOW, and _yes_, I overused the caps, it was on purpose) probably won't be updated as frequently, but I'll be working on it consistently. Odds are that any time I'm working on one story, I'll also have the next chapter for the other story within reach. I'm not about to abandon either.

My songs of choice for the chapter in no particular order: "Lullaby" (in English), "Crying Alone", and "Shadow", all by Yuki Kajiura.

Angelic:

NO, CUMORE WASN'T ENOUGH. MUST HAVE MOAR PLOT TWISTIES! Wheew, Gawd, don't ask _me_ why they all came at once. They just DID, so I ran with it. But this chapter is, mostly, quieter. Lots and lots of talking, yay! I hardly need to say why.

And oh look, fluff with Judith and Letha. By your definition, there is possibility for romance now. Hmmm? O ,o

Kyushen:

I hope I don't disappoint, since MANY "mean" people have been looking forward to this. Dear me, I've been writing and going back and changing and entirely cutting things from it all week, until I made myself stop and move on.

Powerless bystander:

I have earned that cookie, because the comment about Chase's attack in connection to video games _was_ purposeful foreshadowing. One of the very few I managed to work in with him. Generally I also prefer more leading up to such a revelation, but something about Chase's character and actions made that harder than usual. What I could work in was small and easy to overlook most of the time in favor of other things happening.

No offense taken, even very likeable stories by awesome authors (much better than me) can get tiresome and anyone who's played the game already knows at least half of what I'm writing about. There's stil many ways I can improve, and I appreciate all criticism that I can learn from!

bright night:

Lucky Chase; people still love him! Unlucky Al; everyone still hates him! Or almost everyone. What an interesting duo they make.

I'm pleased to say I haven't really gotten many flames. And any reviews that might qualify have all been given with much thought and maturity (encouragement and criticism, both are musts for growing writers!).

x x x

Chapter 48: Talk, Talk, and...Girl Talk?

x x x

"Fricken' mother of _scheisse_!" I swore, mixing my oaths in my agitation. To top it off, I'd become aware of a persistent ache in my head. An unwelcome leftover of the numb relaxation I'd experienced just before things went to hell again.

"Can someone tell me, what jus' happened here?"

"Something tells me Letha can."

Sheepishly, I turned around to face Yuri and Raven. The swordsman was just reaching out to grab the hilt of his katana still standing in the ground. Which made me recall that Chase hadn't been carrying his claymore. "His room!"

I dashed past them into the inn, not checking to see if they followed or not. For only a moment in the hall was I delayed while I tried to figure out which room Chase had been staying in, converting the information from when I'd spied around outside. Then I threw open the door with enough force that it banged off the wall. I tried not to wince at the spike of pain the loud crash drove through my head.

The room was empty. It had certainly been occupied until just recently (the fact that the twisted sheets on the bed had not yet been changed by the maid attested to that) but there were no personal effects left behind. The thin curtains hung in the window waved mockingly at me as a night breeze slipped inside.

There was a whistle from the doorway behind me. "Boy clears out fast," Raven observed. He'd brought up the rear, coming in after Yuri, and closed the door behind him. The swordsman gave the room a cursory once over, not all that interested since we were obviously too slow in getting there, before giving me a dark, no-more-crap-please look.

I sighed and closed my eyes, feeling defeated. Really, my only escape would be to jump out the window. And that would just be pointlessly delaying the inevitable.

Crossing to the room's single desk by the window, I grabbed the chair to pull it out and take a seat. I paused, though, when I saw the white slip of paper weighted down by a small knickknack (some weird piece that looked like a flowering cactus with a smiley face). I picked it up, holding it by the corner with thumb and index finger as if it were something covered in filth. There was a single word.

_**sorry**_

was scratched down hastily, the 'S' almost invisible as the ink hadn't flowed properly. It was in English, making it painfully clear who had written it and for whom it had been left.

"Letha," I heard Yuri say from behind me. "Just what's going on? What is 'Earth'?"

"A 'quaint little rock' doesn't really tell us all that much," Raven put in. "More like, nothin' at all."

"Home," I murmured, eyes tracing the shape of familiar letters in an unfamiliar hand. Feeling my heart clench uncomfortably, I shoved the slip into one of my pockets without care for how it got crumpled and sat down slowly. Once off my feet it was like all my energy seeped out of my body, leaving me listless and just...no longer caring what happened. I'd already been betrayed twice, by Ludwig and by Chase, and I had no idea why.

What did it matter if I told the truth now? The worst that could happen would be they'd hate me for it. At least I would understand why.

"Earth is what we call our home," I looked away, gazing out the window up to the night sky. "The planet we come from."

"Wait, yer sayin' that ya come from another planet? Yer kiddin'," Raven scoffed. I didn't bother saying anything, just looked at him where he sat on Chase's bed. They were the ones asking for the truth, and I gave it to them. Believing it or not was their choice. As if he heard my thoughts, Raven leaned forward a bit to study me. "...Yer not kiddin'."

My eyes drifted down to the floor, then I peeked almost shyly at Yuri through my hair. His stoic expression didn't give his thoughts away, he simply stood by the door with his arms crossed and waited for me to continue. With an inward sigh, I did so.

"You know how...in the stories about the Serenity and its crew? That it's a ship traveling through space to different planets?" I thought it might help to relate this to something they'd already had time to think about and accept (even as just a fictional possibility). Give them something to relate my story to.

Yuri shifted his weight so that he looked more relaxed, leaning against the wall next to the door. Though I thought it looked like he was either staying there to make sure no one was lingering outside to eavesdrop, or to make sure I wouldn't bolt and try to escape that way. _Though there's always the window option..._ "So you came here on a ship like that?"

_Whoops_. "No, I didn't actually come on a ship," I hurried to specify. "Honestly I can't tell you how I got here. I just...was here...all of a sudden." Which was true. I knew Nevi was responsible but I had no clue what he'd done or how. "I've been thinking for awhile, and while I could have somehow, through some freak occurrence I'm not smart enough to realistically imagine, been displaced through space by God knows how many lightyears-"

"What's a lightyear?" Raven actually asked. (_Really? That's what you're curious about?_)

"Unit for measuring distance that's only practical when speaking in terms of stellar travel," I answered flatly, as if I'd been called on by a teacher in lab. "As I was saying, the other possibility I can think of is-"

"Why do ya call it a 'lightyear'?"

I faltered and looked at Raven, single eyebrow raised. But he was expectantly waiting for an answer, seeming honestly interested. So I answered, "Because it's how far light can travel given a year." I paused, waiting a moment, but nothing. "The other possibility is-"

"An' how far is-"

"I don't know!" I snapped a bit, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers as my headache throbbed again, "I'm bad with remembering the actual numbers, okay?"

"I think that's enough old man," Yuri finally intervened.

Raven leaned back with a shrug. "Just askin' is all."

"You've really killed the tension," I muttered under my breath.

Raven waved a hand at me in a 'continue now' gesture, "Don't mind me! This ol' man will keep his questions to himself!"

Shaking my head to myself, I had to think back a bit to remember what I'd been trying to say. "Right... Either I somehow jumped the distance between our planets or," I stopped, searching for the least confusing way to say what was on my mind, "or I've crossed some type of dimensional barrier dividing this world from mine."

"What's the difference?" Yuri asked.

"Well, I'm hardly an expert on either," I shrugged. "The farthest Earth technology can send a person is to our Moon. Though I'd think that's more because we get too distracted by petty things to concentrate enough resources on studying how to go further than just taking pictures of Mars." Raven raised a finger, I glared at him until he lowered it. "And dimensional travel is purely theoretical and too complicated for me to understand in anything other than fictional 'what if?' possibilities.

"Buuut, if I'd only been sent through space, then that should mean my world exists somewhere out there," I gestured out the window towards the sky, "and could even be one of the stars we see." I looked back from the window, "Whereas if I've gone through a dimensional barrier, then I think that no matter how long you were to search the skies you would never find the world I came from."

There was a sobering silence as that sank in. And I was struck by how lonesome that explanation made my situation sound. _And yet Chase never said anything. Why? Wouldn't he have been just as lonely?_

_How long has he been on his own?_

But he was allied with Alastor, who seemed to be an enemy of Nevi. Admittedly, I did not get along well with the narcisstic fairy, but whether I liked him or not it was Nevi who was calling the shots. So Alastor was by extension my own enemy as well. _So, then Chase would be my enemy too, wouldn't he? Was that why he never said anything? Was that why he'd always helped me? So I would trust him, and not suspect he was up to something?_

_Asshole, how dare he!_ I ignored the twang of pain in my heart, burying it in favor of anger. Pretending it was anger hurt less.

"Even if your story's pretty hard to swallow," Yuri commented, "You're being surprisingly open."

I closed my eyes and let a bit of dark humor creep into my voice, "And perfectly honest too. Don't that beat all?"

He didn't rise to the bait. "And that guy, Chase. You say he's from Earth too?"

I nodded, "Yes. No doubt."

"Hold up," Raven frowned, brows drawing together, "What about his family? Ya said his father was a member of The Protectors, like yer uncle. Er," he rubbed the back of his head, "though I guess he isn't really yer uncle after all."

I could practically feel Yuri's eyes boring into me as I neutrally answered. "No, Ludwig isn't actually family. But he took me in and treated me well, allowed me to claim I was his niece even though I was a perfect stranger, so I consider him one of the most important people to me in this world." I shrugged, "I imagine Chase must have...made a similar arrangement with Arcas."

"'One of the most important'?" Raven repeated. "Who're the others?"

I smiled wryly at him. "I've been traveling with you guys for how many months? And you still need to ask?" Raven ducked his head, and I chuckled a bit. _Got him with that one_.

Yuri pushed off from his wall and stepped forward to the center of the room, drawing all my attention to him. "If we're so important to you, then were you ever actually planning on telling us about this?"

Unable to meet his piercing gaze, my own eyes dropped down and head fell forward a bit so that my long hair fell forward in a veil over my face. A natural shield I hadn't used for years, since I'd learned how not to cry in public. "...No," I admitted, "Not really." My hands clasped each other in my lap. _Even if I _thought_ of telling someone, anyone, a few times, in the end I never really had the determination to do so._ I closed my eyes,_ Really, it's more like I was waiting for somebody to force it from me._

"I'm...a very selfish person. I like to help others when it doesn't hurt me, but I won't reach out when I'm afraid it will hurt me," I confessed. "Not physically, but emotionally. I laugh and try to make others laugh with me. It feels good to be able to brighten other people's days. I am proud of myself for being able to do that with jokes or stories.

"But I can't share the things that make me feel vulnerable." _I can't sing when I know people are listening. I tell stories, but can't share my original writing unless I'm anonymous or leave the room. When I paint, I only show people some of the final products and dislike when they peek at the work in progress. And Earth..._ "If I told you about Earth and none of you believed me, it would hurt like you wouldn't believe."

"And _that's_ why you didn't tell us anything?" I looked up at Yuri, one of my eyes still hidden under my hair. "I told you it's not like we'd behead you or anything just because we didn't like what you had to say," Raven mouthed the word 'behead' with raised eyebrows, but that went unacknowledged, "All you had to do is tell us, and we'd have tried to help you find a way back home. You're not the only one who sees us as friends after all this time." By the end of that last part he was pulling his 'I'm talking to you but not actually facing you' trick. I wondered if that cool act could be his own way of hiding his vulnerability...? He had just admitted that he, the infamous loner Yuri Lowell, saw us all as friends.

_And_, I smiled just a little,_ I think that was a tacit way of saying that, this time, he accepted that I was telling the truth as it was. He believes that I'm from Earth._

_I almost wish he didn't. It makes it look silly that I worried for so long. But..._

I shook my head and stood, "You don't need to."

"Why not?" Raven asked in surprise. "Wouldn't ya want to find a way home, soon as possible?"

Feeling like I'd already bared more of my heart than I'd wanted to, I started walking towards the door. But that meant walking right past Yuri.

He didn't lift a finger to stop me, but just as I reached to open the door he spoke. "Do you even remember your home?"

I paused, my hand lightly touching the doorknob. "I remember enough to know that if I were to go back now my family would only be hurt by how much I've forgotten."

"So you're going to give up without even trying?"

And I had to laugh. A short, bitter sound. "That's the line! The line every idealistic hero in every good-will-prevail story says!" _'You won't' know until you try!'_ Lifting my hand from the doorknob, I ran my fingers through my hair and tucked it back behind my ear. "Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the strong role models those heroes are meant to portray. But I'm," I grabbed the door knob again and pulled it open, "not one of those strong characters."

"Geez, ain't that kinda dark for you?" Raven asked even as I was walking out the door.

_One coin, two sides. You should know what that's like, Raven_, I thought but didn't say aloud. Neither of them said anything else to stop me as I left. I was dimly surprised that they didn't try to stop me, since there was definitely more to be said, but I felt too drained to care much.

I'd just flipped their entire image of me, like a picture on the wall someone claimed had been hung wrong and flipped upside down. It was only courteous to give them a bit of time to think about it and realize that's the way I'd been all along.

x x x

I wasn't sleeping very deeply, so the sound of the door creaking open and clicking shut again roused me most of the way out of uneasy sleep. Lifting my head groggily (with a fuzzy sense of relief that it had stopped hurting, but not sure why it was supposed to) I looked around to see Judith walking around the room to her own side.

She noticed me blinking blearily at her. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"Nnnnah," I groaned out. "Not sleepin' well 'nyway..." It felt like I'd been dreaming something unpleasant, though I couldn't remember what it was.

"Well that's a problem," she fluffed the pillow on her bed til it met her requirements, "It'll already be difficult to get up bright and early in the morning after all the fun tonight." I groaned wordlessly, and the krityan smiled over at me. "I think I know what will help."

Before I could ask what she meant Judith left the room again. I blinked at the door before shrugging and rolling over in bed, pulling my sheets up around my neck again. But I couldn't fall back to sleep, and found myself turning over from one side to the other repeatedly, unsatisfied with any position for long.

The door creaked open again and something sweet smelling wafted over. Propping up on my elbows, I watched as Judith walked over with a mug. "Here, drink some of this," she held out the mug to me.

I accepted it, finding it was pleasantly warm in the cradle of my hands. "The last time I drank something without asking what was in it, I got drunk and started singing in public," I told her, face warming a bit as the reminder embarrassed me all over again.

"Yes, so I heard," she said agreeably. "I rather liked that one about the moonlight and forests." The still rising warmth in my face must have been quite a blush. "Don't worry, this is a tea blend my father used to make to help me sleep at night."

_Judith's father? Hermes?_ I looked down into the amber liquid, watching some herbs sinking slowly to the bottom. _I see...there was never any mention of her mother. I got the impression that she didn't have one._ I could imagine a krityan scientist, who'd been working late into the night, taking a break to make his lonely daughter tea. Because there was no mother around to do that for her.

_Or perhaps I'm just a sentimental softie_, I thought, reminding myself that assumptions did not substitute fact. Gingerly I sipped at the tea, careful not to burn my tongue.

"It's nice!" I remarked, "Sweet, tastes a bit like honey."

"Children do like sweet things. It took my father a few tries before he thought of that and added honey to the mix," she gave the cup in my hands a fond smile. "Before that all of his experiments were bitter, and I wouldn't finish any of them."

I giggled at the mental image, a chibi Judith in bed surrounded by mugs of cold tea and a mad scientist father bringing out his latest experiment for the next test.

Sipping from the mug again, a question came out of the blue to me. "Say, Judith..."

She was back at her bed turning back the sheets, waist cape thingy removed and folded neatly on a chair with her boots standing under it. "Need something else?"

"Ah no, this is fine," I turned the cup in my hands a few times, "I just wanted to ask something, but it might be too personal."

"Well, you can go ahead and ask," she sat down on the bed's edge and pulled the clip from her hair so that it fell loose (looong hair! Jealous, I am!). "If it makes me uncomfortable, I'll just tell you so."

I took another sip of tea, chastising myself for bringing it up. _Really, it won't do any good, but if you don't ask you'll have bothered her for nothing_. "I was just wondering-and you really don't have to answer!-...if you still miss your father. And your home." I ducked my head a bit. "Sorry."

"It's alright. I don't mind you asking." She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at the ceiling. "I suppose I do miss them at times. You can't really bring back your childhood though, so I don't think about it that much." Her red eyes lowered to look across the room at me again, and I forgot at that moment` that Judith was actually younger than me. She'd already been through so much more than I ever had. At least my loss of family and home had been quick and clean, not leaving me with trauma or painful memories. Rather the opposite in fact.

But then she smiled at me, "Even if I could somehow return to those times, it just wouldn't be the same now. So I prefer to remember the nice things some times and focus on what I'm doing now. And it's not like I've been lonely. I had my friend with me, and now I even have the guild."

I found myself smiling back at her. "That's true, isn't it? We have the guild now..." I sipped more of my tea. "Hey, speaking of the others, they're not still up are they?"

"Raven fell asleep in the front lobby," she reported, picking up a brush to use on her hair, "Karol and Rita went to bed not long after that. You know how Yuri is, he went out for another walk. You'd think he were a child the way he can't stay still." We shared a laugh at the swordsman's expense. "And," there was a twinkle in the krityan's eye, "I think Estelle went to join him for his walk. While trying not to let the others notice. Too bad Repede followed her."

I cocked my head at an angle, wondering at that last part. '_Too bad Repede'...? Oh! Oh Judith, I always knew you were the shipping type!_ Shaking my head I had to laugh a bit. "Oh Judith..."

"What's the harm in hoping?" she asked coyly, "I've yet to meet this 'Nan' Estelle has told me Karol's head over heels for, so there's only so much fun I can have with that."

"I'd say that's already plenty of material to have fun with," I countered, "what with the Ace's priceless reactions to _any_ teasing at all on the matter."

"Well that much is true, but," she laid the brush on a table and gave me a conspirational grin, "don't you think it's frustrating sometimes? How Yuri doesn't seem interested in _anyone?_"

"Why, Judith, I'm sure I don't know what you mean," I said primly while very deliberately placing my tea mug just so on the night table. An act which she saw through. I knew she would.

"Of course, I mean how he's been traveling with four lovely ladies and seems oblivious to each one's charms. Disappointing, really," she pouted a bit, "Not even one hint about old crushes either."

And the prim and proper expression I'd been maintaining wavered, "Well, I'm sure we'd get more than a hint if we were to ask Flynn." Who, undoubtedly, had all that and more in the way of embarrassing stories about little Yuri growing up.

"That is a very good plan," she decided while settling into bed, sheets draped loosely just below shoulder level. "You can ask him that tomorrow."

"Me? Why me?" I put the light out.

"It was your idea, you should have the honors."

"You brought it up!"

"You're just as curious."

"That-that-!"

"Goodnight, Letha."

x x x

Thanks to the tea and light banter with Judith the night before, I had relaxed and gone to sleep peacefully soon after.

I'd known that Yuri's late night 'walk' had been him going to his meeting with Flynn, which I thought I'd delayed with my own case of shit meeting fan but apparently not. And Estelle would have listened in on the whole thing, finding out about Yuri's involvement in the death and disappearance of certain scumbags (though I wondered if the truth about Cumore's case had come to light). This would have precipitated another very serious discussion between the two of them, about Estelle's resolve and Yuri's...being Yuri.

_Wonder if the poor guy had any time left over to sleep last night_.

Rita was scolding Raven for oversleeping when I joined them outside on the inn's doorstep. As I approached, she whirled on me. "You're not any better, getting here...after..." she stared, and by then the others had noticed me as well. "Wait, where'd you get that?" I grinned.

Karol gaped in disbelief. "Don't tell me you've been carrying that all this time!"

I pushed the glasses (designed for fashion only, lenses didn't magnify anything or mess with my eyes) a bit higher up on my nose. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That costume! You actually brought that costume with you?" the mage was pointing at me. Or rather, at my clothes. I was wearing the Jade Curtiss costume again.

Funny thing. I'd been repacking my bag, trying to inventory what I had and arrange it most efficiently, and found the costume folded at the bottom with the pieces of my mp3 player tucked into the folds. I was shaking it out to refold neatly again when I thought, _why not?_ and tried it on again.

You know, there was actually a skit in the Tales of the Abyss game where Luke, Guy, Natalia, and Mieu all gang up on Jade to try and make him take his uniform off. Because he was obnoxiously unaffected by the heat, and they'd convinced themselves that there was something about his clothes that regulated temperature or something.

Holy crap, but somehow I felt cooler and more comfortable in the costume than in my own clothes. So I kept it on.

Standing in military at ease, I schooled my expression to something outwardly passive, though allowed some of my amusement to leak through and give me a hint of that knowing smirk that I associated with characters with the colonel's personality type.

"Uh, what's with that?" Raven asked, looking down at Karol. _Heh, he and Judith weren't there last time_.

The boy sighed, "Letha worked at a clothes shop for a little while back in Dahngrest. She wore that then."

"'Walking mannequin display' would be an appropriate job description," I admitted. "But I'd say this qualifies as a very good bonus to compensate for my troubles."

The archer raised his hand to hide his mouth as he asked the others in a loud whisper, "Hey, am I just imaginin' that she sounds a bit different?"

Estelle smiled a bit tremulously (_...she's troubled about last night still, isn't she?_), "Ah, she seems to enjoy playing the character when she wears a costume."

"Sounds like fun," Judith said with interest, "Maybe I should try it."

Rita folded her arms over her chest. "I thought you didn't like all that dressing up."

I smiled at her, and the character of Jade I was aiming for made it a bit patronizing. "The benefits outweigh the disadvantages." I allowed the persona to relax as I gave a big grin and spread my arms in a silent 'look at me!' "Actually, these clothes are better in the heat than my own, or even the robes the innkeeper loaned us before!" Which was awesome, because we'd already returned those the day before.

"Yer jokin', right?"

I hummed cheerfully, "By all means, you don't have to believe me. I'll simply continue to wear this until we've finished our return trip through the Weasand."

"Serious...?"

"All right then," Yuri cut in decisively, "Looks like we're ready to hit the road." Wordlessly agreeing that there was nothing else to do in Mantaic, we all picked up our bags and got ready to leave. While walking down the street in a group (Yuri and Repede in the lead, Estelle, Rita and Karol behind him, and Raven and I falling to the back with Judith just ahead of us), I couldn't shake the feeling that something seemed different about the little town.

_Ah, there's people outside_, I realized. Children were playing in the street while adults talked freely by the side of the road. It wasn't as lively as other towns we'd been to, but there were still those who needed to be brought back in from the desert and recuperate from their ordeal. The town would recover with enough time.

"Huh?" Karol was also looking around, "There are fewer knights than before." I blinked and looked over the streets again. He was right. There was roughly the same number as people outdoors as always, but now only a few actually had knight uniforms on.

Yuri looked back a bit, also surveying the streets before meeting Karol's questioning eyes. "Yeah. Flynn and his crew went back to Nordopolica."

"That must mean they were traveling by night," Judith surmised.

Karol frowned, rubbing his head. "Was there some emergency they had to deal with?"

"Maybe they had to take care of the monsters from the coliseum," Rita suggested.

Karol clapped a fist into his other hand as if he'd made a connection. "I'll bet Palestralle requested the help of the knights."

"I would hope not," I said, trying to express my disagreement in a way that wouldn't sound questionable. "Considering that incident occured nearly two weeks ago, I would expect either the knights or Palestralle to have straightened out that mess by now. Otherwise we would have to question the effectiveness of both organizations."

"Y-you've got a point," Karol conceded a bit grudgingly. He might have taken some offense to my implied insult of one of the top guilds.

"We'll have to wait and see," Yuri settled it as neutrally as possible. I let my shoulders rise and fall in a shrug, not all that bothered. Honestly? I would have preferred it if it were about the monsters.

But Estelle must have caught something in his response that the rest of us missed. "Yuri?"

"Well," he looked forward again, "it's just that Flynn said something about a barricade."

"Barricade?" Judith repeated to be sure. "What could that mean?"

Beside me Raven was silent, but I studiously avoided looking at the man. _I wonder how often he's able to get in contact with Alexei... There could have been someone with Flynn's brigade that gave him a message. So...could he know what's being planned in Nordopolica?_

Or, more concerning to me, could he have already sent back a message about my origins. I wanted to say I trusted him not to, however, ignoring the possibility would be more than foolish.

A new idea had occurred to the princess, "Are they out to arrest Belius for what happened in the Great War?"

"I can't imagine that Palestralle would be outmaneuvered that easily by the Knights," Karol objected.

"Yet you were able to consider it a likely possibility that Palestralle may have been in a bind that required the knights assistance?" I reminded them, "Your opinion of their capabilities seems rather inconsistent." _Uh, um, that sounded a bit meaner than I meant it to_.

And that wasn't overlooked. "Letha, isn't that a bit harsh?" Estelle admonished me, looking back with a slightly disappointed expression.

"Merely an observation," I responded nonchalantly. "I apologize if I have offended anyone."

"Maybe we should think twice about headin' back ta Nordopolica for now," Raven suggested. He stopped, just before we left through the town's main gate. The rest of us all stopped with him.

"But the new moon's almost here," Karol reminded us all, "If we miss this chance who knows when we might meet Belius again." I closed my eyes, _That would be...never_. I shook my head._ No. She's not going to die. Not if I can do something about it. But I'll still need to get there in time_.

Raven rubbed at his stubbled chin, "That's all well and good. I'm just not in a hurry ta get tangled up with that armor wearin' bunch."

"Me neither," Yuri agreed.

"We'll just have to be careful, like always," Karol stepped in front and raised a finger like he were lecturing us adults. "No use panicking about it."

"Very true," I nodded, "though not as reassuring coming from the one who would be most likely to panic."

He flushed a bit and stuttered, "I-I wouldn't panic!"

I could imagine how they might all be thinking something along the lines of how they might make me get rid of the costume. Or throw it out while I was sleeping.

There wasn't much else to say after that, other than Raven's reluctance we were all ready to go, and he couldn't exactly keep trying to convince us to put it off. If nothing else, Rita probably would have insisted on going ahead of us if we tried so she could study the aer krene in Cados. Which would certainly have gotten us all pulled along to make sure she didn't have to go alone, and we'd have continued on to Nordopolica anyway. No win for Raven.

We resumed our journey, most of the group eager to be on the road. They believed returning to Nordopolica would be a start, a way to find the answers Estelle needed. If I had my way, we'd get those answers without anyone getting hurt.

x x x

_**Cumore's Missing**_

_Karol: Thing's are bound to improve here in Mantaic, now that Flynn's liberated the town._

_Judith: They did allow the ringleader to escape though._

_Letha: ..._

_Karol: Cumore? Flynn'll catch him in no time! Right, Yuri?_

_Yuri: ...Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure he will._

_Judith: Is something wrong? He looked troubled..._

_Rita: Estelle's not her usual perky self, either._

_Estelle: Th-that's not true. I'm as happy as you all are that Mantaic's been freed._

_Rita: I-if you say so..._

_Letha: I'm sure they're just tired after that party last night! That's all it is..._

_Judith: Seems like they're not the only ones._

_**Flynn - Part 2**_

_Judith: Your friend is quite talented, considering the ease with which he saved Mantaic._

_Yuri: Who, Flynn? That was nothing for him._

_Letha: Heh. You sound proud of him..._

_Karol: ...You know him really well, don't you Yuri?_

_Yuri: Well, we've hung around together since we were kids._

_Raven: You don't hang around together much anymore, though._

_Yuri: ..._

_Karol: Yuri?_

x x x

"Hey, Karol."

"What's up, Yuri?"

"We finished Estelle's request." His katana sliced through the spines of one of the cacti crustaceans (Yes, I was still calling them that). "Shouldn't Brave Vesperia start looking for other jobs?"

Karol smashed his axe down, severing the pincer from another monster. "Yeah, you're right. Hmm, I wonder what we should do." Deep in thought, he didn't notice that another monster was about to shoot him from behind (like one had done to me before). I was about to jump forward and try and intercept, but Judith beat me to, spearing it from above as she came down from a high leap into the air. Karol was oblivious, "We could get a job in Dahngrest if we were members of the Union..."

Rita gave me a light jab in the side, "Concentrate on what you're doing!" she scolded.

"Hey, I'm a guild member too! I should be paying attention!"

Raven was taking it easy besides the mage and I, though he held his bow ready in case there was a chance for a clear shot. "Hey kid, didn't you know?" he called out to Karol. "The Union'll throw you work even if ya don't join 'em." He drew the bowstring back smoothly and an arrow zipped through the air, piercing another cacticrab in the eye. "They take a cut, but..."

"Really?"

"Pay attention!" Rita smacked the back of my head again.

"Yes, sensei," I grumbled. Concentrating on the aer again instead of Raven's advice about finding guild outposts, I gathered the light strands of aer, that felt (in a figurative sense) like soft pieces of down, and pictured weaving them into a pattern that Rita had been trying to hammer into my head all day.

"Blow wind, blow! Wind Blade!" A gust of wind was stirred up around me, which lashed out and cut deeply into one of the cacti crustaceans. "Ha ha! Vengeance is sweet!"

Incantations seemed to be more of a focusing technique, designed to help one visualize the pattern of the formula and concentrate on it without getting distracted. I'd felt a bit silly borrowing Raven's 'knock 'em around and cut 'em down' phrase, and had substituted a Grandia spell that had been ingrained in my head from hours of level grinding. I was pleased to see it had worked just as well.

"Alright, that was better than last time," Rita nodded approvingly. "Now you've got a total of one," she raised a finger, "reliable spell you can use. On to the next one!" I sighed. _What an implacable teacher._

But at least concentrating on lessons kept me away from Yuri and Raven. Earlier on the trail, when Estelle and Judith got absorbed in teasing Karol about Nan (Judith started it, probably out of dissappointment that Flynn left before we could get juicy gossip) while Rita looked on for entertainment, the two men had both fallen back to walk on either side of me.

_"Letha," Yuri had begun._

_"I can guess what you're going to ask," I interrupted. "Now isn't really a good time."_

_"Maybe, but you better not try to run away from it later," he warned._

_Raven nodded, about as serious as he could get without reverting to Schwann. "Yeah. Wouldn't look good in front of the others if we had ta get the pooch to track you down."_

_"I'm not going to run," I said quietly. "Don't you think it's a bit late for me to be considering that."_

_The swordsman looked at me sidelong. "Probably, but that doesn't guarantee you won't."_

_I remembered all the other times when I had run, or even used my aikido on Yuri in order to get away. "I guess I deserve that."_

_"But right now, I just wanted to say one thing." He waited, but I didn't say anything so he had to continue. "I think you should tell the others."_

_"Why?" I asked, a bit surprised._

_"Before-"_

_"And just how many times have ya two talked like this before?" Raven mumbled under his breath, but didn't seem to really be looking for a response._

_Yuri rolled his eyes slightly at the archer and started again. "Before I promised I wouldn't tell the others you were hiding something as long as it didn't put any of them in danger."_

_"And you think it does now," I guessed._

_He shrugged, "It didn't seem like either Chase or that Alastor wanted to hurt us last night. But we don't know what they're planning, just that it seems to involve you somehow. You can't keep us in the dark anymore, or next time someone," he looked pointedly at the others walking ahead of us, "could get hurt."_

_I dropped my eyes to my feet, sliding and sinking a little into the sand with each step. "...I'll...I'll think about it."_

_"Letha!"_

_"Give me a bit of time!" I snapped, sounding angry because I was trying to hide the way my voice wanted to shake. "Just give me a little. It's...not so easy."_

_They had both stared at me, measuring, and Raven spoke first. "I don't think there'd be harm in that, do ya kid?"_

_And Yuri had sighed, "Fine. But don't wait too long."_

_I nodded mutely, and then lengthened my strides so that I caught up to the group ahead, getting Rita's attention and asking her to help me practice with spells some more_.

And that was where we stood. Yuri wanted me to share my biggest (that he knew of) secret, and Raven was passively supporting him. If I cornered Raven in turn about his identity as Schwann, he would probably be swayed to my side, but I didn't want to be the person who'd do something like that. And certainly, Yuri could expose me to the others at any time now if he wanted to. I should consider it a sign of his friendship (and trust, if I still had any from him) that he was giving me the chance to do it myself.

_Haa, but how long can I put it off?_ I thought as I squinted up at the sun. I really didn't want to have to do it, but Yuri had a point about Alastor...or Chase...being a potential danger to the others. I couldn't guarantee they wouldn't get drawn into my own mess.

_Belius_, I decided. _I want to talk to Belius first. Somehow...I want to save her, and I somehow feel that if I can, then I'll have earned something. I guess the right to have stayed with them even when I'm hiding the most important things._

_Belius_.

x x x

Chapter with a lot of talk going on. And a set up for even _more_ deep secret sharing in the near(ish) future. Feel like I still managed to be a bit productive though.

Skipped some bigger scenes, the Flynn Talk and the Estelle Talk. I mean, with all the talking and what not going on this chapter and how long we've been in the Mantaic arc, I'm sure everyone else wanted to get Letha out of there as much as I did. Really, so much plot happened (I'm sorry?). Those scenes were summed up as quickly as I could by Letha, and yeah, I skipped the Kowz thing. Yeah. That little meeting seemed unnecessary to me for the story. BUT, some of you wanted to see Letha meet him. I'm already trying to plan an omake for that (though I'm not sure how long it'll take before I get around to it).

On a silly note: I know the PS3 version had a skit where Flynn tells the others Yuri's first crush was an older woman. ;D


	49. Chapter 49: The Nature of Secrets

__Hit a few snags when writing this one, but for the most part I almost couldn't _stop_ writing.

Kyushen:

Heh, I know what you mean. When I'm reading an SI I'm always dying for the characters to find out that one of their friends is _not_ like the others~ In the position of _being_ the writer, I have to work hard to keep it from happening before I want it to. Can't have every fun detail come out at once.

Maybe, but it would depend on just what sort of confrontation you're imagining. Letha wouldn't do something that would blow his cover, but she probably wouldn't be adverse to using it to extort something small like free sweets out of him...

Angelic:

DESERT ARC IS OVER! Though they're technically not out of the desert yet, but that'll be fixed soon.

Good. That's one ship I don't need. And it's hard enough when Judith, in the middle of a scene, starts suggesting new impossible ships. (You'll see what I mean.)

Hrm, don't know much about military procedure or ranking...Colonel Letha Vitae of the Abductee Brigade! (I have no idea what I'm talking about!)

bright night:

Oh, I have plans for how that's all going to play out. I'm sure everyone's trying to guess whether I'll let her save Belius or not (and I feel like a terrible person if I think about that line too much), but I'm gonna keep my lips zipped til it's time to cross that bridge.

And you're one of the few people to admit feelings of hatred for Chase, even given it's not permanent and dependent on whether he can give a good explanation. Haha, how does that boy manage to stay so popular?

x x x

Chapter 49: The Nature of Secrets

x x x

Rita had given me a break from magic practice, though I was supposed to keep reviewing the formula for Wind Blade in my head so I wouldn't just forget it again. The others mostly avoided talking to me since they didn't want to have me pull a Jade act and start cutting them down verbally with sarcasm or wise ass remarks. I was torn between amusement (Jade persona) and remorse (me) over that. At least Repede didn't seem to mind walking with me. It wasn't like I could make smart remarks at a dog's barks.

It was probably for the best, since I didn't really feel like talking. The monotony of trudging through sand, with only the rare break to fight monsters, lulled my mind into a meditative state of thought.

_I told them...I told Yuri and Raven... Was it the wrong choice? It hasn't really settled anything... I have some explaining to do, and they may still decide they want nothing to do with me afterwards. If nothing else upsets them, hearing I knew everything that was going on and said nothing would._

Outwardly my expression remained passive, cold even, befitting Jade the Necromancer of Tales of the Abyss. Inwardly I was banging my head on a wall. _Gyaaah! But I can't go telling them about the video game! ...If I don't, then maybe they won't take my story as badly?_ Elbow braced in the palm of one hand, I rested my chin in my other hand while considering the possible outcomes.

_That _is_ the most troublesome issue. But if there's the chance that it could come to light later...no telling what else Chase might give away... And then it would be on my head for having left that out. So would it be better to say everything right from the start? But then it's pretty much guaranteed that Alexei would find out._ I chewed on my lower lip while trying to weigh the likelihood that either Chase or Raven would say something.

_Raven...it might seem harsh to say I believe he would, be he's currently the commandant's man. Until the others connect his duplicity and other identity as Schwann in what-ever-that-place-was-called...something with a "B"... Well, the final grain that tipped the scale of his loyalties doesn't come til then. I doubt I've done much to change that._

_Chase... _I could practically feel a dark cloud of gloom settling over me. _He's become an unknown. He said nothing for so long, but last night he let slip such a key detail as Earth so easily. It might be better to work with the assumption that he won't keep any of it a secret anymore..._

_But before the whole "your world is my world's fictional entertainment" part comes up, Yuri's bound to ask about Alastor. I didn't really give any explanation about his involvement last night, and they were probably too overwhelmed hearing about Earth to realize it at the time, but I'll have to tell them something next time._

_Should I just outright tell them about the fairies?_ No particular arguments why I shouldn't came to mind. And thinking back to figure out how Nevi might take to it, I remembered him once saying he didn't really care what I told them as long as it didn't get in the way of my search.

_I wonder if...maybe I could have told them about the fairies from the start? Maybe I didn't have to be afraid to? Oh, but before that would have made my story about how I grew up with Ludwig and Sophia questionable. Why would fairies have singled out an unremarkable country bumpkin to travel the world for them when there are probably tons of better candidates?_

My eyes narrowed as I repeated that last part to myself. _Indeed...why me? Even on Earth, there were probably lots of other better choices than me. Nevi isn't telling me something...again._

"Good day!" Estelle called out.

I blinked, rousing myself from inside my head to pay attention to our surroundings again. Interestingly, I realized that walking had gotten easier without my realizing it. The terrain was no longer endless shifting sand and rolling dunes, but a more level plain of loose and gritty dirt. There was even more plant life around, though it was sparse and scraggly. Approaching us from not that far off was a lone traveler laden with heavy looking bags.

At the princess' hail he waved to us. It didn't take much longer for us to meet halfway, and he took the chance to put down some of his baggage while talking with us. "Ah," he wiped a hand across his perspiring forehead, "are you going to the Weasand of Cados?"

Yuri propped a hand on his hip. "Yes, we are. Why do you ask?"

"The Imperial Knights have sealed off passage through the Cados," the traveler told us. "It's not just here-they've set up blockades at all of the routes through the mountains."

"It's true then," I murmured, trying to act as if I hadn't known indefinitely before then.

Rita muttered, "Why would they..."

The traveler looked at her and shrugged, "I don't know all the details, but I heard that it has something to do with some danger in Nordopolica."

"What should we do..." Estelle looked to the rest of us with concern in her eyes, "We need to get to Nordopolica before the new moon!"

"In that case it's simple," I said with confidence. They turned to me, waiting as I smirked and adjusted the perch of my Jade Curtiss glasses, "We just go right through. And don't take 'no' for an answer."

"I think you need to change outfits before it screws up your brain permanently," Rita shot.

"There's no way we could do something like that!" Karol rejected immediately.

"I dunno," Yuri disagreed with them. "That sounds about right to me. If all else fails that is." I smiled wickedly at him.

The traveler was shaking his head in disbelief as he listened in. "I wish I could help, but they wouldn't even let me through, and I have a travel permit."

Karol cocked his head in surprise, "Are you a member of the Fortune's Market?"

"Yes," the traveler, or traveling merchant, responded matter of factly.

"How'd you get your permit?" Yuri asked curiously.

It was Karol that answered, and the merchant fished out a canteen to drink from as we listened to the little guild boss. "The empire issues travel permits to Fortune's Market so that it's members can travel wherever they want...at least, that's how it's supposed to be..."

"Well then," I shifted my weight onto one foot while smirking at a sudden realization. "That means the knights are planning to finish with whatever they're doing in Nordopolica as soon as possible."

"What do you mean?" Estelle asked. The others looked baffled as well, definitely missing how I'd drawn that conclusion. Though Raven's brows came together as he scratched his chin. Perhaps he was following the same train of thought.

"Even in times of war, merchants are given more freedom than most others," I explained. "In fact, times of war are times of major profit if you have a good head on your shoulders. Being cut off from the market results in economical damages and shortages of essential goods, and many a battle can be decided by who has the better supplies." The merchant was nodding, and Raven's expression had cleared in a way that said he'd probably figured out what I meant.

Yuri frowned at the logic. "What makes you think they're gonna finish quickly instead of settling in for a long term siege?"

"Yes, that would be a reasonable interpretation," I acceded. "Raven?"

The archer shrugged and accepted the explanation I'd handed off to him. "The guilds wouldn't take too kindly ta having one of their major cities attacked by the Empire, 'specially not so soon after the treaty an' the mess with Heracles. If the Knights overstay their welcome here, you can bet the Union will have something to say about it."

"And I doubt they want to risk any retaliation when most of their knights are here, making barricades, instead of back home protecting their most noble selves," I finished smugly. It was a bit of strategy that wouldn't have occurred to me when it was all just a game. In games, the heroes and the antagonist sent obstacles always arrive no sooner or later than they're supposed to, and clear out the second the story doesn't need them there anymore.

This was interesting...

"So you think the Knights are preparing for an all or nothing strike?" Judith asked us.

I shook my head. "There isn't enough to gain from instigating full out war now. It would be foolishness."

"Well," Yuri quipped dryly, "I, for one, have seen little proof that the Knights don't regularly make fools of themselves." I had to incline my head and give him that one.

"I'm going back to Mantaic," the merchant announced a bit uneasily. "Since there's no way to get around them." We fell silent as he gathered his things up and left.

As we watched him pass by and gradually become smaller in the heat skewed distance, Estelle finally voiced the concern on a few of our minds. "Do you think Flynn ordered the blockades?"

"Hmmm, I couldn't say," Yuri said cautiously. "Either way, we can't afford to be stuck here for much longer."

"Yes, it'll be a lot of trouble if we miss the new moon," Judith glanced up to the sky, as if expecting the moon to have risen already to show us how thin a slice was left.

"And we want to get there before the knights finish whatever party they've been arranging," I added. "I have a feeling we won't like their choice of entertainments much." That earned a few grimaces.

"But I don't think they'd let us through, even if we asked nicely," Karol pointed out worriedly.

"That's why I said, 'don't take no for an answer'."

"Well, to be honest, we can go take a look and think about how to get in..." Raven suggested before Rita or Karol could get angry or panicky at me again. "The hard part will only come once we've gotten inside."

Karol nervously shifted his bag on his shoulder, "What do you mean, 'once we've gotten inside'?"

"They've set up blockades to make it hard to get outta the mountains...gettin' inside shouldn't be nearly as tough," the old man reasoned. "I think that much is safe to assume."

"Yes," I agreed, though I looked tellingly in the direction of the receding back of the merchant. "Assuming as well that the ones trying to get in have the nerve to get one up on the knights." Glancing sidelong at Yuri, I wasn't surprised at the grin he wasn't trying too hard to hide.

"Well then, shall we?" I gave a slight bow and deferential 'after you' motion of my arms to the others.

"There's a look of mayhem in yer eyes, I hope ya know," Raven commented.

"Really? I wasn't aware."

x x x

_**Appropriate Attire**_

_Rita: So hot...I can't wait to leave this desert behind for good!_

_Estelle: Just a little longer, we've almost reached the Weasand of Cados._

_Karol: I just hope we don't get turned back by the Knights. I wouldn't have the energy to make it back to Mantaic._

_Letha: Those who have enough energy to complain aren't nearly as tired out as they claim to be._

_Yuri: You were one of the ones complaining only a few days ago._

_Judith: I guess that means the costume really does keep her cooler._

_Letha: Nonsense. It's a matter of psychology. The heat can only get to you if you let it._

_Rita: That costume also makes her more annoying._

x x x

Knowing it would have been downright stupid to just waltz right into the cave opening, the rest of us stayed back out of the line of sight of anyone just inside while Yuri and Repede went ahead to check it out. As expected, they came back with a report of knights from Flynn's brigade standing guard. What was unexpected (to everyone besides me) was that they had brought monsters with them. (...Rhybgaro? I don't think I ever saw it when were in Nor Harbor, but I think it looked like that from what I remember of the game...)

"P'raps they've been tamed by the knights?" Raven whispered, as we all cautiously looked around the edge into the shadows. Yuri had said it was safe to get that close, but we were still pushing it...

The swordsman was scowling at the mixed human and monster sentries blocking our way. "This brigade is reminding me of Flynn less and less...What the hell is Flynn doing with his knights, anyway..."

We all drew back a bit to talk it over.

"With hardcore tactics like this," Raven said seriously, "there ain't any doubt in my mind this has something to do with the talk of Belius engineering the Great War."

"I'm inclined to think so as well," I agreed, feeling too Jade-like to keep quiet about military maneuvers. "Targeting Nordopolica as a whole would be asking for another war, but if their only goal was the Duce? Claim it was to fulfill justice for war crimes, and the knights become the righteous ones in this drama." Yuri's scowl deepened.

"So how do we get past this checkpoint..." Karol wondered. He looked a bit queazy, perhaps because he had an inkling that whatever we'd do would get us on the knights bad side. More so, I should say.

"How about this?" Quick as a wink, Raven stepped to the mouth of the cave and fired off a shot inside. It proved to be one of his exploding arrows (_I think he uses aer to do that...not sure..._) as hardly a second later there was a blast, followed by the whinnying scream of a monster and shouts from the knights trying to keep it from running amok.

"Let's go now!" Judith hissed, and we surged forward all at once together.

"Hey hey, don't leave this old man behind!" Well, almost all together.

Our mad dash did not go unnoticed, Sodia's voice shouting Yuri's name shrill and clear over the pandemonium of frightened knights and monsters. We didn't even bother to look back at her, though Raven's voice rose in a singsong, "See ya! Have fuuun!"

Even once we reached the relative safety of the tunnels we didn't stop running, though we did have to slow a bit so no one had to be scraped off the walls. Yuri laughed aloud, and I could hear the thrill in his voice, "That was pretty slick, old man!"

"I thought I'd liven things up a bit!" the archer crowed.

"What'd I say?" I smirked, "A chance to get one up on the knights!"

"Geez..." Rita sulked, between gasping for breath. "When will all of you grow up..."

x x x

_**Closing Everything Off**_

_Karol: Only the empire has enough power to cut off all the ways in and out of a whole town._

_Raven: Well, the guilds' power is totally different. The Union would never try something like this._

_Yuri: It's the empire's style. Crush problems with everything they've got. What are they after? Who do they think they are, sealing off all the roads like this?_

_Judith: I think the answer to that lies in Nordopolica. We should hurry, before we're caught._

x x x

Once we got some distance between us and Sodia's group of knights, we slowed down to a reasonable pace. Our footsteps echoed loudly down the tunnels when we ran pell mell like that, but moving more slowly and quietly we could trust in the complexity of the turns and branch offs to help hide us. Though they would catch up eventually.

With that pleasant thought in mind we didn't pause for a break until we absolutely needed to and felt reasonably sure we'd lost our pursuers for the time being. I didn't pay attention to the ensuing conversation, it was mostly rehashing the same concern about the barricade and Flynn's role in it. In my opinion, the only new item was Raven's input. "Sometimes orders comin' down from the top don't make sense. The meaning can get lost going down the chain of command. When a brigade gets big and famous enough, things can start to get outta hand."

Across the small room, Yuri tilted his head in interest. "You certainly know a lot about these things. Makes sense for someone in Altosk."

Raven shrugged it off, "Things can end up like that no matter what the organization."

_Honestly, and it was me that got found out first?_

Knowing our time was limited, we moved on so that Rita could have at least a short time to look over the aer krene. Though she'd have to be quick about it. We walked in silence until we reached the spot where the low stone pathway was partly submerged in aer saturated water.* I stayed back away from it as the others watched Rita go to work studying it.

It was more involved than in the game when she just stood and stared at it. The genius immediately whipped out a small notebook and pen, furiously jotting down notes as she dropped to her knees and peered out over the edge. She leaned over so far at one point that Estelle grabbed her by the back of her shirt out of fear that the girl would topple over. Rita didn't even seem to notice as she was busily scratching up a small sample of sediment from the rocks, looking at it more closely under a lens. All the while she mumbled to herself, occasionally we could catch some of it, "...completely inactive now...how could a monster...perhaps something else interfered...but what...only a formula or a blastia..."

The others asked questions curiously, which she answered with only about half of her attention on us. (Yes, it was safe and not about to overflow again. No, it wasn't a natural phenomenon, or else it would be regular and have caused abnormal plant growth). I didn't participate even for form's sake, since I was keeping myself apart from them to avoid the aer krene.

I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of water dripping.

_Drip-ip-ip-ip..._

_Drip-ip-ip..._

_Dri-drip-ip-ip-ip..._

_Drip-ip-ip..._

_Dri-drip..._

_What a soothing sound...I wonder, if I listened long enough, would I be able to find a song in it?_

_Dri-dr-drip-ip-ip..._

_Drip-ip-ip..._

"Letha."

I started a bit, and realized Estelle was standing directly in front of me. "We're leaving now, before the knights can catch up with us again." I blinked, trying to bring my thoughts back on track again. The princess took hold of one of my hands and led me forward, me following without a thought until-

_Painandtightnessinmychestcan'tbreath_

I gasped as I jerked my hand out of Estelle's and stumbled backwards. I'd stepped into the aer krene without noticing in time, and I had to hunch over while gasping to find my breath again.

"What's wrong?" she cried in surprise, grabbing both of my shoulders and trying to help me back up.

"N-nothing!" I forced out.

"I almost forgot!" Karol's voice echoed from the other side of the aer krene. "When we came through here before, Letha got aer sickness again when she tried to cross through the aer krene!"

A meaty smack and pained 'Ow!' from the boy, and then Rita snapped, "Tell us that sooner! How'd she get through last time?"

"Duke helped us!"

"Really?" Yuri sounded surprised. I'd gotten my breathing back under control and was trying to stand up slowly without getting a dizzy spell and falling over. "Didn't strike me as the helpful type." Now I could see that other than Estelle and I, everyone else had already crossed to the other side of the natural bridge and the aer krene's area of influence.

"He looked very put out about the whole thing," I wheezed, sure I could stand on my own power again. "I'd say it was pretty funny, actually, if I didn't hate these damned things so much..." Tough to say, but I don't think I was handling the aer as well as I did the last time...

"Looks like one of us will have to help her this time," Judith calmly pointed out.

As could probably be predicted, Raven swiftly volunteered. "Of course, I shall do the gentlemanly thing an' sweep the fair maiden off her feet!"

"You do and I'll kick you in the head. Repeatedly," I promised him before he could take one step across the aer krene.

"Well, that leaves our other strong gentleman, doesn't it?" Judith said innocently. But _I saw_ that devious grin on her face! The others all looked at Yuri when they realized who she meant.

"Uhh, I don't think I want Yuri to help either..."

"What, is Duke better than me or something?"

_Oh God, why am I in this situation now?_ I flushed slightly, and that made me all the more embarrassed. "He didn't exactly give me a warning or a choice!"

"Oh, a man who knows how to take charge... No wonder no one else will do," Judith teased.

"Gyah!" I uttered in horror, realizing how they were probably picturing it now. My blush deepened. "N-no! That's not what it was like! He only held me up, he didn't actually carry me! Hardly touched me at all!" Karol and Estelle were both looking at me in confusion, too young or sheltered to get any of the implications being thrown around.

Rita just plain didn't care, and was getting impatient. "Will you knock it off and grow up already? Somebody get her over here!" Though she seemed to have taken advantage of the delay to start jotting down more notes and frowned at the water pooling around her feet.

"I'll do it myself!" I gritted through my teeth, willing the heat to leave my face. Stubbornly I stepped forward and tried to walk out across the stone bridge on my own. If I knew it was coming and braced myself, I could handle it! Right?

No, I couldn't, I discovered as I crumpled up again, head bowed low over my knees. _Can't breath! Too much aer...not enough air!_ My thoughts were confused, barely registering when both my arms were taken hold of firmly yet gently, and I felt them settle over broad shoulders. I blinked to clear my watering vision as I was lifted back to my feet and saw Yuri and Raven on either side of me.

"Thanks," I said softly. Then, hesitating for a moment, I whispered as quietly as possible (my trouble breathing made that very quiet indeed), "There are no aer krenes on Earth." We kept moving forward, but I felt both their arms supporting me tense at that admission. I closed my eyes again, trusting myself to them. "Well, we don't really have the time to talk more about that, but I'm sure you can guess some of what that means."

"You sure are talkative about that now..." Yuri grumbled.

I smiled. "Remind me to tell you the story about the man who cut the king's hair."

"Sounds fascinatin'," Raven drawled.

Repede began growling. I felt Yuri twist to look over his other shoulder. "Damn, that would be our fan club. Seems like these knights are just as dedicated as the Captain himself. Rita, let's go." He snatched her arm with the hand not occupied in keeping me up, and dragged her the last few feet along with us.

She shook him off, "All right, all right!"

I recovered my strength not long after Yuri and Raven got me clear of the aer krene, and then we all hurried off again.

x x x

"Take cover," Judith warned. We pressed up against the tunnel wall, the ones in front (Judith, Yuri, and Raven) looking around the bend. It only hid us from those ahead, since behind us was a yawning drop off that left us in clear view of the trail we'd just come from.

"Huh," the archer grunted, "Guess it's only natural they're guarding this end, too."

Karol was trying to stand on his toes and crane his head to look around them safely. "Raven, can you do something like you did before?"

"Best not ta press your luck when the Knights're takin' their work so seriously."

Rita placed a hand on his back and pushed down to raise herself up (forcing him to bend over in the process) to look over his head. "They don't look that serious from here."

The echoes suggested the knights were talking, but I couldn't tell what they were saying (there was no room for me to force my way through for a peek) until one particularly loud one scolded, "Enough complaining! If you don't like it, we'd better produce some results!"

I'd had a hand cupped around my ear, but at that distinctive voice I lowered it. "Wasn't that Leblanc's voice?"_ Right, I remember the Schwann Brigade was here too..._

"There they are!" a voice rang out behind us. "Capture them!"

Karol moaned, "They found us..." We could see a large number of knights hot on our trail, monsters in their train. In comparison, going forward looked the easier option.

We all ran around the bend, confronting the trio from Raven's knight brigade who'd been alerted by the yelling and shouted commands of their fellow knights.

"Ah, if it isn't Mr. Yuri Lowell!" Leblanc declared, pleased by the turn of events.

"Hey, Leblanc," the swordsman returned companionably. "It's been a while."

Leblanc did a double take when he looked over the rest of us. "A-and Your Highness!" He shook his head and raised sword and shield. Adecor and Boccos followed his lead, all determined to do whatever it took to get their hands on Yuri. _Pfft! I swear! What is it about these guys that always reminds me of that particular meaning for Yuri's name?_

"Wh-what're we gonna do?" Karol wailed.

Raven glanced at me sharply, then sighed, "Oh, well. Here goes nothing!" He darted out from where he'd kept to the back of the group, hiding from his own men behind the rest of us.

Yuri tried to stop him, "Wait!" but was ignored as the archer took a stance in front of us.

All at once Raven's usual air of languid carelessness fell away as he struck a stiff, straightbacked pose. "A-ten-SHUN!" he barked, his arm cutting through the air giving his command further sharpness.

"Y-yes, sir!" Leblanc sputtered, snapping to military attention and saluting sharply with remarkable efficiency, Adecor and Boccos responding just as fast.

Raven blew past them, the rest of us close on his heels while Yuri muttered about not being sure what had just happened.

We left them behind fast, and the confused brigade even served as an obstacle in the way of the other knights pursuing us. Karol kept looking back over his shoulder in amazement, almost tripping in the process. "Raven, what did you do...?"

"Ahh, it's nothing." He brushed it off, though shot me another glance. I pressed my lips together tightly, a wordless message that I wouldn't give it away.

The others were willing to leave it at that, since we had to get out of the Weasand before we could say we were home free.

x x x

There was still a crevice opened in the floor of the tunnel near the other entrance of the Weasand. When we'd gone past it I'd looked down at it, then at Rita with a sour expression. "That wasn't fun, you know," I told her, remembering how her Ground Dasher had opened the stone up under my feet.

"I said I was sorry already!"

"Not to me, you didn't."

Arms flung up in the air, "Well I've said it now! What more do you want?"

Honestly it wasn't Rita that I was upset about. It had been an honest accident. But the memory of what came after I fell...

_Don't remember it. Don't you ever dare to forget what you've done, but don't drag it up to dwell on it now_.

Again, I was lost inside my own thoughts as we trekked across the plain fields. And again, my brooding was masked by the cold persona of the Necromancer. Pretending to be somebody else probably wasn't the healthiest coping method, but if it kept me going so I could reach Belius by the new moon then that was fine with me.

By the same token I was harsher than ever when fighting any monsters that crossed our path.

I would have been happier to have gone straight to bed and pretended to fall right asleep when we set up camp for the night, but decided I should linger by the fire and try to repair any damage done to my happy go lucky image during my stint as Colonel Curtiss. In my usual clothes, of course.

When Karol asked me to tell more stories about the _Serenity_, I had to take a moment while I remembered what happened in the next _Firefly _episode. _Let me think...I think the crew was playing a game...looked like a weird version of basketball...alarms...Wash goes to see what it's about and sees there's an abandoned ship just ahead and-oh. No, let's not tell them about the ship that was attacked by Reavers._

The Reavers were like the series' version of zombies, but not undead. Just psychopathically homicidal, in a way that made Zagi look considerate. There's never a close encounter with them in the series itself, because that would end in everyone dying. The movie, on the other hand, centered around them for the second half...

_Right, skipping ahead to the next episode!_ And I animatedly began describing the adventure where Mal crashed a fancy ball for business, and in the process got himself into a duel with Inara's snobbish date with near disastrous results. An adventure that started with a game of pool, "As with other situations the key seems to be: giving Jayne a heavy stick and standing back," and a bar fight when Mal stole a slaver's wallet. The latter duel at the ball, however, pulled Mal out of his element as it was a traditional match to the death with swords. And unfortunately for him, his opponent was highly skilled and took great pride in having killed ten men in such fights.

My high school actually had a fledgling fencing club, so for the duel scene I grabbed a slightly charred stick from the fire and demonstrated the en guard stance. Then improvised the actual fight, throwing in flourishes that I wouldn't have bothered with in an actual bout.

"-he stepped on Mal's sword, snapping off the blade, and pointed his own at the captain's throat." Estelle's hands were covering her mouth and Karol leaned forward excitedly. I wasn't sure either of them were remembering to breathe... "But before he could actually kill him, Inara begged Atherton to spare Mal, and said she'd stay on as his personal companion if he showed mercy.

"The aristocratic snob was distracted, thinking he'd won on both accounts, but Mal leaped back up and punched him in the face again. With the element of surprise, Mal knocked down the snob and stole his sword, reversing the roles entirely. The observers urged him to finish Atherton off, but Mal said, 'It would be humiliating, having to lie there while the better man refuses to spill your blood. But mercy is the mark of a Great Man.' Aaand Mal jabbed him sharply in the stomach with the sword." Yuri snorted as I poked my stick into an imaginary opponent on the ground. "'Guess I'm just a good man,' Mal reflected. Then he jabbed him with the sword again," I pantomimed the motion again, "'Well I'm alright,' and tossed the sword away."

I settled myself back down on my seat, using my "sword" to rearrange the logs in the fire a bit. "Well, Mal's demonstration of character impressed the client he'd been sounding out, and he got the smuggling job with no problem after that." Grinned impishly as I tossed the stick on top of the fire, "Turns out the goods was a herd of livestock. Loads of fun ferrying them off planet without having a stampede in the ship's hold."

My story told, I settled back into myself for the rest of the night. The others chatted a while longer about trivial things. Or important things. Could've been either. My attention was captured and held by the thin sliver of moon. I peaceably murmured goodnights when the others turned in, but at no point felt the need to go to sleep myself.

When Yuri sat down next to me, I was mildly surprised. "Thought you'd gone to sleep already."

"Wondering why you haven't."

I looked away from the moon and around the campsite. "Raven's not gonna come join, is he?"

"Nah, he's already snoring away." He stretched out one leg, the other pulled in close with his arms folded across the knee.

We sat in the quiet night, with only the snapping of the fire and soft breathing from the tents. I stirred first. "You know, you and Captain Mal are a lot alike."

"What, because I tend to disagree with people telling me what to do?"

"Well, there's that." I twisted my braid around my fingers. "Mal is a good man, who tried to fight for what he thought was right, but became disillusioned by the harder truths of life. Life and people." My fingers seperated an unbound lock of hair from the rest and started smoothing it. "So he struck out on his own path, a path which he followed to find freedom. Like you did."

Yuri dropped one hand from his knee and turned towards me a bit. "And what makes you think you know me that well?"

I shrugged, dividing the lock of hair into sections and weaving them together. "You were once a knight. Now you're not, and you don't like some of the things that Flynn is doing for the knights. But..." I undid a few twists of my hair and rewove them, "You can't stop being a good person, and caring for people who need help." I dropped the braid once I reached the end of my hair. It would come undone soon, I had nothing to tie it with. "You're gonna get hurt that way."

"You're just full of cheery things to say now, aren't you." He shook his head, "The old man's right, it sounds too dark for you."

I linked my fingers together and stretched them out before me. "Sorry, normally I find other ways to deal with it. Usually writing or music. Telling stories is fun, but I haven't had the heart to make up any of my own lately," I made a face, "Had my fill with that for now."

"Guess that leaves you with singing. I heard from Raven you did quite a bit of that last night." My face flamed hot again.

"Don't tell me everyone knows about it..."

"It kind of got around," he chuckled. In retaliation I gave his shoulder a shove, though refused to look at him directly. "Didn't you say you had a story to tell me earlier? Something about cutting hair?"

"Ah yes, I did say something like that..." The fire had died down to glowing embers and a few small flames by this point. The stick I'd used to act out _Firefly_ was still in it, only half its original length. Yuri grabbed it by the uncharred end and began turning over the coals and smoldering logs, building up a shelter around the remaining dregs of heat.

Something about the task felt...comforting? Maybe another nearly forgotten memory. I let my eyes drift partway closed as I began to recite. "There was a kingdom where it was a dangerous thing to be a barber. Many were summoned to the castle by the king, and none were ever seen or heard from again. One day, a young barber was summoned, and of course he couldn't refused even though he was afraid.

"He was brought to the king, and told that he must keep secret what he was about to see. The king removed his crown...and shockingly, hidden underneath was a pair of ram's horns."

"'Ram's horns'?"

"Animal on Earth. Has distinctive horns shaped like this," I demonstrated the spiral of the horns with a loop of my finger next to my head. "The young barber was shocked, to say the least, but kept his tongue and cut the king's hair as ordered without saying a word about the horns.

"The king was impressed by the young barber's restraint, and so allowed him to leave with his freedom instead of locking him in the dungeon like all his predecessors. On the condition that the young barber tell absolutely no one the king's secret."

"What, that he had horns? That's weird, but doesn't seem like that big a deal." Yuri tossed the stick back into the fire pit, a few sparks flying away to wink out in the darkness.

"It's beyond weird on Earth. Depictions of humans with horns are commonly symbolic of evil. Not very good public relations to show off that your ruler has horns."

"Ah."

"In any case, the young barber kept his word. He didn't tell anyone, not even his closest friends and family about what he'd seen. But keeping the secret to himself was straining, his belly swelled up until he became fat from the effort of not speaking."

"What? How does that even work?"

"Plot device."

"Oh yeah, not allowed to question those."

I giggled a bit. "Really, it's probably fine not to take that part literally if it bothers you. There are times when holding in a secret makes you feel like you're gonna burst. And that's how the young barber felt. When he could bear it no longer he went down to the river. There he scooped out a small hole into the ground, and whispered into it, 'The king has horns!' Replacing the dirt, he felt relief to have finally spoken his secret, and hadn't broken his word in doing so.

"But...

"From that spot in the ground, a reed grew. And a young musician came along and cut the reed, turning it into a pipe to play. When he blew into it, the pipe sang out, 'The king has horns!' In short order, the whole village knew.

"Furious to find his secret spreading, the king had the young barber brought before him again and ordered that he be executed."

"Why does that keep happening in your stories?" Yuri observed ironically.

"Less traumatizing to tell the little children than stories about concentration camps or legal procedures."

"What?"

"Never mind." I started pulling up the grass under my hand by the roots, not really thinking about it. "The barber wasn't really executed anyway. The piper was brought in and made to play his pipe, which declared the king had horns like it had every time before. In a fit of rage, the king threw off his own crown, and exposed his secret for all to see. After that, he couldn't very well execute the barber who had stayed true to his word in not telling anyone. So his life was spared, and a lesson in honesty was learned by all."

"Except by you, apparently," Yuri couldn't help but point out. "Unless you're trying to say you've straightened out and plan to be honest from now on?"

"More like, I'm trying to say... Keeping a secret from everyone is hard. Eventually you can't do it anymore. Once it's out, it wants to be repeated as many times as it can, like when it played every time the pipe was blown." I tossed the handful of grass on the coals. They blackened and curled up on themselves. "And now my own secret's out."

"And you're afraid of who'll hear about it." He watched the way I jerked reflexively at his conjecture. "Looks like I guessed right."

"Think I was making it too easy for you there," I mumbled, starting to hunch over and hide behind my hair again.

Yuri grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me to face him directly. "Who cares who else hears about it?" he demanded. "You're one of Brave Vesperia's, and we're not about to let someone take you away from us."

"I'm one of..." I whispered, and then smiled. "Like I said, you're just like Mal."

"Huh?"

I laughed a bit at his surprise at my abrupt return to the earlier subject. "He'd have definitely said that _Serenity_ takes care of its own." _You take care of your friends, the way Mal does his crew._ "Guess I really can't win against people like you." I stood up, leaving the fire pit for the tent Judith and I had for ourselves. "Give me one day. I'll talk after we meet with Belius."

And then I was closing up the tent flap, and Yuri couldn't follow or force the issue further without waking everyone up.

x x x

_Geeeh! Why did I go and promise that?_

_I know why, because when I actually promised I would I won't be able to back out of it, and then I'll stop agonizing over it._

_Now I'm just gonna drive myself crazy thinking how I must be a bloody idiot until I finally get it over with!_

We'd gotten up and moved out early, eating our breakfast on the go. The plan was to get to Nordopolica as fast as possible. Getting there early wouldn't hurt, and would give us some leeway in case something happened to delay us (which always has a tendency to happen, no matter what world you're in).

Actually, we made pretty good progress. Even a little bit faster than when we came out this way, since then we were trying not to lose Regaey/Yeager's scent trail.

Still, I was impressed when we reached the main entry a few good hours before sunset. We were all pretty beat, to be sure, but we'd have plenty of time to rest before going to meet with Belius that night.

Raven surveyed the other people hanging around, mostly other travelers and some merchants. "Hmm, not as many knights as I'd have guessed..."

Rita turned a slow circle, taking it all in in one sweep. "Yeah, security looks normal even with all the commotion after the tournament."

Something crinkled under my boot. Looking down, I found I'd stepped on a paper that had been blown around by the sea breeze. While the others decided the lack of knightly presence was pretty suspicious considering all the trouble being put into the barricades, I knelt to pick it up. It was creased and torn in several places, and my own muddy heel print was not the first.

_Hey, I think this is a wanted poster..._ A very poorly drawn one, much like the one of Yuri. Looked like a picture of a spiky brown hedgehog on a blob of red. By habit more than anything else, I read through the written description under the picture.

_**Swordsman of unknown origin. Brown hair, red jacket with white streamers, suspenders,**_

_Waaait..._

_**and ambidextrous, fighting with two blades simultaneously. Wanted by the empire for crimes against the nobility of a violent nature.**_

_Oh you have got to be kidding me..._

"-it looks like we can stay in town, as long as we don't stand out," I became aware of Karol saying.

"Yeah, like that guy does." I looked up from the poster to see Rita pointing. Following the direction of her finger with an odd sense of the inevitable, I could swear my heart stopped for a few seconds when I saw the young man she had singled out. He definitely stood out in the crowd with his poppy red jacket sporting two white ribbons from the back of the collar and black suspenders I'd never seen someone under the age of fifty wearing.

_WHY IS LLOYD IRVING ON TERCA LUMIREIS?_

x x x

And there ya go, Access~

I said it, didn't I? Her prize request would be obvious when it came.

*I know I described it before as aer in a gaseous form that looked like water, but I had one or two people tell me that it was in fact water, and the aer krene was at the bottom of the pool with aer rising upwards. Something about the way Rita was describing the aer density gave me the impression that it was entirely aer... Haa, well, that's a small inconsistency in the story, but shouldn't make a difference either way. Forgot to mention it in author's notes for the following chapters, so I left it until now.


	50. Chapter 50: Wrong Story, Hero!

__Had Symphonia's song "Starry Heavens" on my playlist as I wrote this one~!

Oh my, what a fun chapter this was~ AccessBlade was given quite a few previews of various parts so she could advise me on whether Lloyd was in character.

...She is very happy.

Let's see, brief summary of what's important to know about Tales of Symphonia and Lloyd Irving for this chapter:

Lloyd was an orphan who was raised (by a dwarf) without knowing who his real parents were, just that his mother had been killed and that his father _could_ be alive, but also might not be. From his mother he had an exsphere as a memento, typically red stones (though the one Lloyd has is blue) that work the same as bodhi blastia in battles (more or less), but the game later reveals that exspheres are made by feeding off of human lives.

He left his home on a journey to protect one of his best friends, in the process uncovered mega ultra conspiracies in his world, and yay! discovered who his real father was.

This should be all you need to know without spoiling the whole game itself for anyone who hasn't played it but is meaning to.

_Thiiiiis iiiiis chapter **50!**_ In honor of that, I've a few pictures that I'll upload onto deviant art soon (like, within the next day or two soon). And I can just _see_ this chapter spawning an omake later. Well, if it does it does. And before I forget _again_, a while back Natsuki Ayaka made fanart of Letha. I mentioned it in the latest drabbles author's note, but kept forgetting to mention it in the main fic's author's notes for some reason. http: /natsuki ayaka. deviantart. com/#/ d46cclo

Angelic:

You think that's bad? You should hear the other crazy stuff that goes on in my head and I am oh, so tempted to try writing just to see if I can. Half of them are impossible pairings, all for the sake of making you shippers cringe. ;)

Lloyd is...well, being Lloyd. All will be explained, or at least just enough to keep Letha from going completely crazy.

bright night:

Yo! Hello again! Yeah, I love it when Raven does that too, and when you think about it it's _such_ a dead giveaway! I mean, that sort of thing only works in cartoons, so that it worked on the Schwann brigade should be kind of telling. Then again, knowing them, maybe not. ;p

Nooope, not a wanted poster of Letha. She doesn't wear red, and I'd probably describe her picture as looking like a nest of brown snakes if it was of her. And not so much as a vow, as in it's harder to keep putting something off when there's somebody who knows you were going to do it to needle you along.

Kyushen:

Totally know the feeling.

Sorry, I should mention now that the suspense isn't going away yet. Lloyd being there is such a good opportunity for fun times. Those are some pretty badly drawn wanted posters... I compared the one of Lloyd from Symphonia with the one of Yuri from Vesperia? I think they actually made the art worse for Yuri, so I tried to imagine Lloyd's poster as extra bad!

x x x

Chapter 50: Wrong Story, Hero!

x x x

A hand lightly touched my shoulder. I tore my disbelieving gaze from _Lloyd Irving_ to see it was Judith. "Is something wrong?" she asked with concern.

"I think my brain just broke," I told her weakly.

"Really?" Karol squinted at Lloyd. "How come? I think he looks kind of cool." _Brain died again!_

"Hey! Can you guys help me with something?" _Alert! Alert! Brain needs an emergency reboot! Somebody hit the big red button!_ Everyone (but me) had turned to the brunet in eye-catching red that jogged towards us.

_Gods, fates, and the number forty two, why do you all mock me so?_

"Depends," Yuri fielded for us, easily assuming the role of spokesperson. "What do you need help with?"

By this point in time I had finally turned to look at Lloyd straight on, instead of trying to pretend he didn't really exist. _Get it together, girl. Really, haven't you figured out yet that nothing's entirely impossible?_ Looking him over more carefully..._Huh? Something looks off..._ I couldn't put my finger on what exactly. The clothes, hair, voice and expressions all seemed right as best as I could remember.

"I accidentally lost something really important," Lloyd was saying. His arms made an odd motion at his sides, hands hovering over the two sheaths on his belts. Empty sheaths, I noticed. He cringed a bit when he caught himself grasping at air and then looked a bit sheepish. "Have any of you seen a red sword that burns things, or a blue one that freezes?" He looked at us hopefully, somehow making puppy eyes despite his age.

_That's it!_ I almost snapped my fingers together once I figured out what was bothering me about Lloyd. _He looks older than I thought he would! More like, he's around my age..._

"I don't remember seeing anything like that," Yuri told him while giving the rest of us a questioning look. We all made similar negative responses, some verbal and some of us just shaking our heads.

Lloyd dejectedly hung his head and arms. "Aw man... Where could they be?"

"Well," Judith mused, "how did you lose them?"

"Did it have something to do with this?" I asked, holding up the wanted poster with the abysmal picture of Lloyd. Everyone crowded in closer to look at it as I passed it to the twinswordsman.

"Not again," he groaned. "This looks even _less_ like me than the last one!"

"At least it's not as ugly as the one they did of Yuri," I smirked. "Maybe the poor quality reflects how much of a pain they think you are."

"Hmm," our black haired swordsman ignored me as he read over Lloyd's shoulder. "Four thousand gald reward... Not bad, but not as high as mine either," he boasted.

Lloyd blinked. "You too? How much is yours for?"

Smugly, "Ten thousand gald." The twinswordsman whistled.

"Well, not everyone can have a chance ta snatch a princess right out from under the empire's nose. That's a pretty tough act ta follow," Raven consoled him. Kinda. Estelle's cheeks pinked slightly, making the archer grin.

Karol looked up at Lloyd, "But what did you do?"

"Ah ha," the twinswordsman scratched the back of his head, "I don't really get why they're so angry about it. It was just a misunderstanding... I thought that guy was showing off an exsphere, and got a bit angry."

"Exsphere?" came the very predictable question from the others. Seriously, it was one of those almost rehearsed moments when they all spoke at once. _It scares me when they do that..._

_Ah! That's not what I should be scared about!_ The dreaded word, 'exsphere,' an object that wasn't supposed to exist in Terca Lumireis anymore than Lloyd Irving or I were supposed to be there! My head snapped around and I stared at him intently, as if by sheer force of will I could prevent him from saying too much.

Maybe it actually worked, because all he said (with a laugh, like it wasn't important) was, "Well, it was my bad. I said I was sorry, but that guy still had some knights throw me in jail. I got out again all right," he frowned, a line forming in his forehead, "but they took my swords away and I'm having trouble finding them." By my guess, 'that guy' was probably one of the more stuck up members of the nobility. And Lloyd hadn't been released in any typical fashion...hence the wanted poster.

Rita crossed her arms and looked away a bit scornfully, probably having decided Lloyd was just another idiot. "So just get some new ones."

Lloyd shook his head emphatically. "No way! I got those from my dads!" A few raised eyebrows and shared looks as most of the group noted the plurality. "Anyway, somebody told me I'd be able to find them here."

"Who told you that?" I felt the need to ask. "Are you sure it's trustworthy and not a false trail?" The impression Tales of Symphonia had given me of Lloyd's intelligence...well, I wouldn't call him stupid, exactly (though definitely classroom and book challenged), but it wouldn't surprise me if he'd been gullible enough to chase a false trail all over the world.

Lloyd was scratching his head. "Uhh..." he shrugged. "Don't think I caught his name. He just told me that they'd probably be sold here in Nordee-poly-whatever."

Someone corrected him, "Nordopolica." Though otherwise the lapse wasn't payed any mind.

"Figures," I sighed. "The odds that he was lying to you are higher than I'd like." The brunet slumped a bit with a disappointed groan.

Estelle naturally tried to reassure him, "But that doesn't mean it was wrong!" She looked around hopefully, "Hey, what if the guild helped? We could find out if they're here a lot faster if we all looked."

"Guild?" Lloyd repeated inquiringly, hope kindling in his brown eyes again.

"Yeah!" Karol practically bounced with excited energy. "For a price we'll take on jobs to help other people! We're Brave Vesperia!" he announced proudly.

"And we also have an appointment with Belius later," Yuri reminded the boy and the princess, making both deflate a bit.

"Oh yeah..."

"I don't see why we can't look around a little first," Judith said gently. "After all, we have some free time before then." Yuri shrugged in response, which meant he was fine with whatever the rest of us decided as long as we didn't forget what we were in Nordopolica for.

I, meanwhile, felt a tickling thought at the back of my mind. _ Swords his dads, plural, gave him...one that burns and one that freezes..._ _Oh dear. _I had to resist the urge to facepalm as a few details about Symphonia came back to me. _Leave it to Lloyd to lose track of the Material Blades._ Though thinking about it, that explained how the hell he was on Terca Lumireis. As for the why? It was Lloyd, he probably did it by complete accident.

Together, the Flamberge (the red sword that burned things) and Vorpal (the blue, freezing one) would make the Eternal Sword (a big ass purple sword that's racist. Exclusive elven club use only. Lloyd gets to play with it because he's the hero, bitch, he can do what he wants and loopholes will be made and exploited to suit him). The Eternal Sword, which would allow the user to say nuts to the laws of time and space. _Nobody seems to respect the laws of time and space anymore..._

And Lloyd had gone and lost something that powerful.

It made me very glad, for once, that the others seemed really gung ho about getting sidetracked to help him. They hashed out the payment details and introductions ("Give me your name and I'll give you mine!" Even when I was pretty much expecting him to say it, the catchphrase made me roll my eyes). I'd been a bit uneasy about the matter of money, since it wouldn't do for our guild to have a reputation to work for zilch when we were just finding our feet, but by a pleasing coincidence it seemed there was no difference between our gald and what the twinswordsman had on him. Thank you...game designers? _Better not to think about it too hard_.

"It's settled then!" Karol pumped a fist in the air, "Let's all split up and ask around town!"

"Yeah!" Lloyd mimicked the Ace's pose. "Dwarven vow number one: Let's all work together for the sake of a peaceful world!" Oddly enough, at his words the group collectively looked to me. Seeing this Lloyd also gave me a puzzled look, though I'd guess his confusion was more akin to mine than whatever the others were thinking.

"What?" I asked a bit defensively.

Yuri smirked, "You're the dwarf expert of the group."

And Estelle murmured, "Dwarven...vow?" as if she was flipping through the pages of a mental library and coming up with zero entries.

I facepalmed for real. "One story. One. _Fictional_. Story. That does not an expert make." Raven laughed and I shook my head with a sigh. "Forget it. Let's go find those swords..."

The black haired swordsman nodded, "We'll all meet in front of the coliseum in two hours." And Yuri matched actions to words, being the first to turn away and enter the city proper with Repede at his heels. And while we were watching him leave, Judith slipped away unnoticed on her own.

"Good luck everyone!" Estelle chirped happily, while grabbing the considerably less enthusiastic mage by the arm and pulling her down another street. I had a feeling their search was going to resemble a female bonding shopping spree...

"Well," Raven drawled, "I'll poke around and see what a member of Altosk can turn up." As he started to saunter off, I tapped on Karol's shoulder.

"You should probably tag along with the old man," I told him, loudly enough that Raven could hear me. "We need someone to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't just find a dark corner to take a nap in."

"Hey!" the archer spun in place to shoot me a wounded look. "Do ya really think I'd be that irresponsible?"

"Yes," both Karol and I replied. Raven made an indignant huffing sound that was just too contrived to be serious and grumbled to himself. "See you later, Letha!" Karol called back as he trotted after the waiting older man.

That's how I found myself standing alone just inside the entrance of Nordopolica with Lloyd Irving. _'Kay, that's starting to be less weird to think about_. I looked over at him and discovered that he wasn't paying attention to me anymore, but was craning his neck around to try in take in all the sights at once.

"Wow, it's a port city just like Palmacosta, but it feels pretty different."

I winced, and then put on a laughing face. "What are you talking about, Lloyd? There's no place called Palmacosta."

He jerked visibly, then rubbed his head while laughing a little too loudly. "That so? Man, glad the professor's not here or she'd be nagging me to study more again." His mood perked up again, "Hey, maybe they've seen my swords!" and he dashed off towards a pair of newbie looking adventurers who'd just stepped out of shop door.

Eyes squeezed shut, I rubbed them both with thumb and forefinger until I saw sparks dancing across the backs of my eyelids. _At this rate I'm gonna get either a migraine or gray hair_.

x x x

Even though there was no spoken agreement to search as a team, Lloyd and I stuck together. Actually, that was more the result of some babysitter instinct in me not allowing me to let him out of my sight for more than five minutes. Seriously, for all I knew he could get the whole Palestralle guild clamoring after his blood if left on his own. Or, maybe, all pitching in to help their new best buddy. Hard to say with Lloyd...

His search methods weren't very efficient though. Mostly he kept running up to random people on the street and asking if they'd seen his swords. _At least he's asking the adventurer types rather than the clearly normal civilians...though that doesn't narrow things down much in a coliseum city_.

"Okay, stop there," I said finally, grabbing Lloyd's arm when he was about to dash off after a woman in leather and a witch's hat and a man in a penguin costume (_what in the...?_). "It's gonna take you forever to find anything like this."

He shrugged off my arm (not that I was gripping him very tightly), and said, "This way's always worked for me before."

"Oh, you'll find something eventually," I agreed, not wanting to start a fight, "I'm just saying there are other ways that'll be more efficient."

The brunet's eyes lit up in understanding, "Oh yeah, like when Sheena would ask the Mizuho ninjas for help..." I chose to ignore that slip of Symphonia detail.

"Yeah, well, I'm not a ninja nor do I know any real ninjas," _though Yuri or Judith could probably make the cut with just a few ninjutsu lessons_, "but I _do_ think I know the right people to ask. C'mon." I started walking away, pausing at a street intersection to make sure I had my bearings and check to see if he was following.

I took a wrong street twice but eventually we found ourselves standing in front of a utilitarian looking shop. The sign had black silhouettes of a sword crossed over an ax over a shirt. And in the windows were displayed some expertly mantained weapons and durable looking travelers' clothes.

"What are we doing here?" Lloyd asked me. He was pretending that he wasn't eying the swords on display, and failing miserably. "I already said I'm not going to replace my swords."

"Wasn't going to say you should," _Heaven forbid!_ I pushed the shop door open and a bell jingled above me head. "But asking the owners should be more informative than passing strangers on the street." Maybe it was still a long shot, maybe not. This was the store Kaufman had brought me to our first night here, and I figured that her recommendation of the shop should say something about the proprietors as well.

Both of which had looked up at the bell and were watching us with the intensity of lions about to pounce. The man grunted, "'S Kaufman's frien'," which must've meant they recognized me. And then in the blink of an eye the woman had me by the wrist and yanked me into the curtained off fitting area.

"Woah! NOT what I came here for!" I exclaimed in startlement. By then she'd already whipped my leather vest off and was trying to coax (force) my arms up so she could take off the turtleneck. She just muttered something about standard follow up service.

"L-Letha?" Lloyd's unsure query came from just outside the curtain.

"If you so much as stick a finger in here, Irving," I hissed, "you will forfeit the use of your eyes." Masculine laughter boomed from the other side of the store. The turtleneck cleared my head and I could see the woman's own broad smile. "Just go ask the nice, laughing man about your swords."

"R-right," he answered, and the floor creaked as he walked away, presumably to the store counter where the man had been.

"Don't buy anything!" I called out. And then I apologetically shrugged at the woman, who was examining the twin holes in the left shoulder of both vest and shirt. "Happened in Kogorh," I said with a bit of embarrassment. "It got me from behind." Damn those crustaceous cacti.

She hummed thougthfuly and rummaged in one of the many pockets of her apron, producing some patches and thread. Picking a thick looking needle from another pocket (it had an odd bulge, so I guessed there was a pin cushion in there) she started mending the vest first, sitting on one of the stools kept in the fitting area. I tentatively sat on the other.

"Better hurt than dead," she said brusquely.

"Maybe..." _Jasper, lying on the cave floor with a frozen expression of pain and fear, not knowing what killed him. Cumore, covered in the smoking blood of a fairy dog with my dagger buried in his chest._ The images that flashed through my mind felt like a palpable weight on my head and shoulders.

Light glinted off the needle as it flashed in and out of the leather. "Yes," she affirmed, "it is." Her confident tone and manner left no room for argument, and I found myself wondering what life she'd led before settling down in the shop. "Now what was that 'bout the young buck's swords?"

"Uhh," I was thrown of a moment by her manner of speech. _I don't think I ever heard either of these people say more than a dozen words total the last time I was here..._ I summarized the situation with Lloyd's lost swords and how he'd come to Nordopolica on a rumor that they were in the city. "I thought that if someone was trying to sell them here, you'd know or be able to find out from the other stores." Another thought occurred to me, "Or maybe someone's heard about weapons like those being used in the fights, or needing to be repaired or something like that..."

The woman grunted and bit through the thread, finished patching the vest. "As expected of an acquaintance of the Madame President."

"Uh, no, Kaufman and I aren't really..." The leather vest was tossed into my arms. I squeaked and tried to cover myself with it as she suddenly threw the curtain open.

"BILL! You got the story from the lad?"

"Yeah, Gretch! Haven' seen any blades like that through 'ere, but Jack was braggin' a few nights back 'bout somethin' off the black market!"

The woman (Gretch?) snorted. "Braggin' to 'is ale cup, I reckon. Gossips worse than a bored fishwife when 'es in 'is cups."

"Ye'd reckon right. 'E didn't achu'lly say what 'es got, so I'll just pop by an' take a look fer meself." I heard the unpleasant sound of knuckles cracking. "Be back in a jiff." The bells at the door jingled and the hinges creaked as the man, Bill, left.

Gretch (maybe a short pet name for Gretchen?) sat back on her stool again and let the curtain fall back in place. She started on the shirt, needle flashing faster in and out of the thinner material.

"What was all that just now?" Lloyd's voice drifted over.

"That," I said, "was precisely why I said this would be faster than asking random people on the street." Though even I hadn't expected _quite_ that little domestic show...

My turtleneck flew into my arms as Gretchen snorted again. "Been askin' people on the street? Half o' them were prolly tourists or travellers jus' passing on through for a spell. Iff'n you want information anywhere about anythin', you need to go to the locals." I hurried to pull the shirt and vest on properly, succeeding just in time so that I was decent when she threw the curtain fully back again. Standing with fists on hips, she gave a toothy grin and asked, "You didn't really mean that about not bein' here to buy anythin', now did you?"

x x x

Lucky that Lloyd apparently placed sentimental value on his red and black outfit, or else who knows what Gretchen would have bullied us into buying. She gave up on the twinswordsman easily enough, but seemed to find my resistance to clothes shopping as unnatural. After insisting for a half hour that the clothes I'd gotten during the last visit were perfectly satisfactory, I'd finally gotten her to stop saying, "But wouldn't you like to jus' _try_ this'n on an' see?"

She'd finally given up on that and was eyeballing Bill's weapon displays as if she'd try pushing them on us next (I'd noticed the strange thing that looked like a tea kettle had been joined by a deck of cards...), when the bell rang again and announced his return. Lloyd leaped up from the stool he'd been fidgeting on (far too restless to call that sitting) and hopped across the floor to stand before him. "Well?" he asked anxiously, "Did he have them?"

A large and calloused hand fell on Lloyd's shoulder, easily moving him over to the side so that Bill could get past and into the store. "Nah, Jack didn' have 'em. An' I e'en checked 'is backroom to make sure 'e weren't tryin' to pull the wool over m'eyes." One of those work rough hands darted out surprisingly fast and pulled a Gemini from my belt. Belatedly I grabbed at the now empty dagger sheath as Bill held the small blade up to the light to inspect its edge.

He grunted, handing back the dagger and jerking his fingers in a way that demanded I fork over the other one, so I meekly did. "But after I shook 'im down a bit, I got the name o' the rat 'e get's 'is under the counter shipments from. Some bloke called Dedecchi. An' word is 'es also tryin' to sell some swords, though 'is askin' price was a bit out o' Jake's reach."

_Dedecchi...I feel like I've heard that name before..._ Bill returned the second dagger, "Passable, but I still think ye should be gettin' new 'nes."

"Thanks, but I don't have the gald to spare right now," I replaced both daggers. "So we need to look for Dedecchi?"

He nodded once, "That'd be me guess. I can't be fer guessin' where ye'd find 'im, though askin' around a pub might'n be a good way to start."

Thanking them again, Lloyd and I left to resume the footwork part of tracking down his swords. As the door closed behind us the twinswordsman was giving me an odd look that seemed to be...admiration?

"What?" I asked, uncomfortable.

"That was amazing! You found out more than I did in a week of searching!"

I shrugged and started walking, taking the lead so he couldn't see how pleased yet embarrassed the praise made me. "It pays to have connections. Or for people to perceive you as having connections. And I think they like me for one: being polite to them and two: threatening you."

"What? Why would they..?" I shrugged again in the face of his bewildered indignation.

"Beats me, people just seem to think it's funny whenever I do that."

Together we wandered down the streets while I tried to remember which ones had bars and taverns on them. My knowledge of the city was far from complete, but it was better than Lloyd's. Who was no longer rubbernecking and trying to look at everything but starting to drag his feet and complain. He wanted his swords, he was bored, he wanted his swords, he was hungry, he wanted his swords, bored and hungry and wanted his swords... I tried to tune him out the way we all tuned out Raven going on about his age.

"Look!" I pointed out a sign with a fork and knife picture, "We can eat here and ask about Dedecchi. Two birds, one stone, 'kay?" _And if you stop complaining, well then that's three birds._ Despite the snail's pace he'd been imitating just seconds before Lloyd beat me in through the door.

Once inside I grabbed Lloyd (who'd started in on his ask-everyone-in-sight strategy again) and sat him down at an empty table in the corner where we could see everyone else. Before long a cute waitress who looked a bit like a blonde Rita gave us each a menu. I glanced over mine quickly, it only had a few simple but filling meals listed like roast and soup. Probably stuff that was served everyday and served mostly to guild or dock workers. Who probably already knew the daily menu by heart. I looked up, ready to tell the not so patiently waiting waitress what I wanted, and noticed the furrow in Lloyd's brow as he stared hard at his menu.

"Uh, could you come back in a minute?" I asked the waitress. "We've got a friend coming." She rolled her eyes and moved on to clear off a recently vacated table. Looking back at Lloyd, the brunet hadn't noticed me sending her away. Sighing, I reached out and placed one finger on the edge of the menu, pressing down until it was resting on the table and Lloyd was blinking at me. "Something wrong there, champ?"

"This place is weird," he complained. "What's with these scribbles all over everything?" _So that's what it is..._ Watching him carefully, I pulled out the folded wanted poster I'd picked up earlier and spread it on the table.

"Lloyd? What does this say?"

"It doesn't say anything," Lloyd said as if it were obvious and I was being slow, "It just has more of those weird scribbles on it." I stared at him, and could swear I saw gears turning in his head. "Wait, didn't that guy, Yuri, say there was a four thousand gald reward? How did he know...?" I kept staring at him. A gloved fist smacked into a hand as he sat up straighter, "Ah! I must be famous here already!"

The table shook as I dropped my head down onto the wooden boards with a small thump. Wearily I raised it back up to see he was leaning across the table and watching me with concern and confusion.

"You okay?"

"Yes," I sighed. "So I guess you really can't read."

"Of course I can read!" he almost sounded insulted. "The professor would have killed me if I couldn't do that much!" She probably would.

"No, I mean," I jabbed a finger at the menus and wanted poster in heap on our table, "you can't read these."

He looked at them, "You mean those funny scribbles are words?"

"Yep," I sat up again and started reading off first the wanted poster to him, and then the menu. He sat and listened with an expression that looked like a silent 'Ooooh!' as if I was doing a neat trick. Maybe I was, since I'd taught myself to read the letters almost as naturally as the Earth alphabet by that point. But it was a bigger trick for Lloyd to have _not_ realized the writing system was different here yet.

I was about to wave over the waitress again, maybe give her the excuse that I'd just remembered our friend had had something important come up, when who else should come in through the front door but Yuri and Repede? The black haired swordsman gave the room a once over, spying us in the corner at the end of his visual sweep. I saw his eyebrows raise and then he came over to our table.

"Didn't expect you guys to be in here," he greeted us.

"Same here," I returned, scooting my chair over so there was room for him in a spot where his back would be defensively to the wall. He nodded his thanks as he pulled a chair over and sat down. Yup, you don't travel with a notoriously wanted man like Yuri Lowell without picking up some basic fugitive etiquette for public places. "Though it seemed like you were looking for someone just now."

The blonde Rita lookalike came back, depositing another menu in front of Yuri and making doe eyes at him. He didn't act like he noticed, just ordering some curry for himself and meat for Repede before handing it back. She pouted at him, not bothering to look at us as Lloyd asked for roast meat and I asked for some bread and soup. I nearly had to shove the superfluous menus at her before she took the hint and left.

I looked at Yuri pointedly, so he'd know I hadn't forgotten my question. One of his shoulders raised and dropped as he leaned forward and propped one elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. "Sorry, but I got a bit sidetracked from looking for your swords," he apologized to Lloyd. And it was less sarcastic than his apologies normally were, so I guessed he meant it. "But while I was asking around the docks I heard that someone had seen Dedecchi recently. I still haven't paid that bastard back for stealing the lower quarter's blastia core," his expression turned ugly at that last part, and Repede growled under the table.

I snapped my fingers, "Ah! I knew the name was familiar!" _Dedecchi the loose end!_ "Lloyd and I heard that he's here selling stuff on the black market, and might have his swords!"

"Well then," a slow and definitely villainous smile spread across Yuri's face, "I've heard he likes this place for the food and the girls," the blonde Rita came back with our food, "though they don't necessarily like him back." As she was moving the curry from her tray to the table before Yuri, he smiled charmingly at her (_woah! Where'd that come from?_) and asked, "Excuse me, has a creep named Dedecchi been here yet tonight?"

Red bloomed across her cheeks as she realized Yuri was smiling at _her_. "N-no, but he'll prolly be here an minute. He's normally in here getting drunk and hittin' on us girls around now." The blushing maid expression was spoiled a bit as she sneered a bit when talking about the thief. "We all be wishing someone'd just get him out of our hair once and for all."

"Something tells me he won't be bothering you for much longer," I mumbled, worried about this exchange. Yuri wouldn't...would he?

Lloyd had been surprisingly quiet up until this point, but as the (still blushing) waitress reluctantly left to get back to work he leaned forward and looked from Yuri to me and back again. "Hey, so you guys already know this Dedeck guy?"

"You could say that," was all Yuri said, picking up his spoon to start helping himself to his curry.

"Dedecchi," I enunciated the name clearly, despite not really caring if Lloyd had it right, "stole something important from Yuri's hometown. We got it back, but never actually caught him." I started buttering one of the thick slices of bread I'd been given (_Bread~_), "You know, I don't think I ever actually saw the guy...only heard about him from you," I mentioned to Yuri.

"None of the others ever met him, actually," Yuri said absently. "I only saw him once, and I didn't get a good look because his face was covered by a hood. He was also impersonating Rita, saying his name was Mordio."

"Aww right," I remembered that from the game...and then remembered how our first real life encounter had gone. "You two really weren't getting along when I first met you. In fact, you thought I was thief too."

"Why's that?" Lloyd asked. Or, I think that's what he asked. His mouth was a bit full...

"Yeah, Yuri," I turned to the other swordsman. "Why _is_ that?"

"What?" he was the one put on the defensive this time, "Rita _said_ there'd been thieves looting the ruins. And you were just sitting there on the secret entrance, and even told us the knights were already gone." It was probably the first time he'd thought back on that meeting in a long time. I could tell, because I saw him chewing more slowly, and slowly looking away from his food towards me with narrowing eyes. _Ahhh, that look always means he's caught on to another snag in my story_.

Sure enough, he swallowed and asked me, "That reminds me, why were you there anyway?" Because, of course, my explanation at the time would be called into question now.

I looked away, since it reeeally wasn't the best time to talk about it. "Uh, well, I certainly wasn't being a thief or anything."

"Good!" Lloyd said emphatically. "Dwarven vow eleven: Lying is the first step to the path of thievery! And thievery would be the next step doing other things that are wrong!"

Yuri and I both stared at Lloyd for a moment, who had the light of morality and peach pie shining in his eye (I swear, it was there), then shared a look that asked, 'is this guy for real?' I started to giggle, though muffled it quickly behind a hand, and Yuri was grinning when he turned back to the brunet.

"So, Lloyd," he said casually, "Where are you getting these Dwarven Vows from?" I tensed before I could catch myself, and worried that Yuri might have caught it too.

"From my dad, he _was_ a dwarf after all," Lloyd answered. _Oooooh boy..._

"Funny," Yuri continued, as nonchalant as ever. It's not fair when he does that. "You don't look like the dwarves I've heard of." By which he meant the _fictional_ dwarves from my _fictional_ story _The Hobbit_. I had yet to hear any mention of a living, breathing dwarf race on Terca Lumireis. And haven't heard any other stories about them either.

"That's because I was adopted. I still think of him as my dad, though, even though I've found out who my real father is."

My forehead met my palm, and I could almost feel Yuri watching me out of the corner of his eyes as he asked, "So where does he live?"

"Dirk lives just outside Iselia, he's still there even though I left on a journey about two years ago." _Ah, no wonder Raine hits Lloyd in the head so much. If I were his teacher I'd probably be smacking the back of his head every day._

"Iselia, huh?" Yuri chewed silently for a few veeery long seconds. "So where is that?" Lloyd stammered incoherently for a bit, finally cluing in that, just as there was no city called Palmacosta here, there was no Iselia. But it was the next part of the question that really got me. "Would it happen to be on Earth?"

_Thump_. My head hit the table again.

"You know about Earth?" Lloyd asked in surprise.

My head shot upwards and I stared at him. "_YOU_ know about Earth?"

"So you are from Earth," Yuri concluded smugly.

"No," Lloyd objected, "I'm from Sylvarant. But does that mean you're...?"

"No," Yuri answered the unfinished question, "I'm from this world, Terca Lumireis. But if you're not from Earth, then how do you know about it?"

"I know someone who said she was from Earth," _what the FLIPPIN' CRAP?_ "But how do-"

"Stop, stop, everybody STOP." Both men looked at me in surprise. I dropped my face into both palms, rubbing at my eyes and the building headache while I tried to gather my thoughts together. Feeling a bit more stable again, I raised my head from my hands to look at them both, all seriousness, and opened my mouth to speak-

"Dedecchi just came in the door, hun," the blonde Rita waitress told Yuri as she walked past our table with a full tray of food bound somewhere else.

There was a moment of perfect still silence around the table, then the meaning of her words clicked. Lloyd practically knocked his chair over as he stood up, though I grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him back down without looking. Instead I was looking over in the direction of the door, as was Yuri, both of us trying to appear as if we just happened to be looking that way, and not trying to find anyone specific. It was easier for Yuri, since he was already facing the right direction and didn't have the awkwardness of trying to hold the overeager and very noticeable person in bright red in place.

Dedecchi was a shorter than average and spindly man. He had a gray mustache that turned upwards at the ends and overlarge front teeth that stuck out in a bit of an overbite, giving him a rodent like appearance. Repede had started growling low in his throat when the thief had come in the door.

"He's right there!" Lloyd hissed at me as I fastened my grip around his arm even more securely. He winced a bit as I squeezed tightly for a second when he tried to pull away (have I mentioned that I have a pretty good grip?).

"And if we just charge at him now he'll get away," Yuri explained, calmly drinking from his glass of water, though his gaze never wavered from where Dedecchi was weaving through the full tables to an empty one. "We have to get closer without him realizing we're after him."

"Geez, Yuri," I said lightly, "I'm surprised someone like that gave you such a hard time."

He grimaced, "He used a smoke bomb!" And then grumbled, "If it hadn't been for the tweedles, I could have caught him anyway." I snickered at his peeved expression.

"Guuuys..." Lloyd whined.

"Patience, champ," I reminded him before letting go. Standing up, I stretched, hands on waist and bracing the small of my back as I leaned back. Not a full back stretch, but it helped me feel more limbered up and energized. "I'm going out for a walk," I told them, speaking clear enough that the tables around us could hear but without making it obvious that I wanted my intentions to be telegraphed. "Meet you guys in a bit."

"What?" Lloyd looked flabbergasted, but Yuri just continued eating his curry normally.

"Nice, leaving us to pick up the tab," he observed wryly. "We'll be along soon."

I threw a wink at the still oh so confused Lloyd before turning away and walking out the front door. And then stood just off to the side, where anyone trying to escape would have to go through me. Looking in through a window, I watched as Yuri pointed Lloyd towards a back door, no doubt telling him to cover that one the same way I had the front.

With us both in place, the black haired swordsman finally approached the table where Dedecchi was sitting. From behind the rat thief. He reached out and grabbed the thief by the shoulder, leaning over to say something up close. The little creep jumped a bit, I judged he definitely would have cleared his seat if Yuri hadn't been holding him down.

The little man was shaking in place, but I still noticed when something small and round fell out of his sleeve. It hit the ground and burst into a cloud of smoke.

"Fire! There's a fire!" a man screamed, and panic broke out. I jumped in front of the door and it swung open. People were stumbling out, I had to stand like a rock in a stream to keep my place without getting shoved aside. My eyes darted over each one and dismissed them as soon as I saw none of them was Dedecchi. Then the window I'd been looking in through before opened from the inside and Yuri hopped out (...).

He looked at me, and I shook my head, so he spun away and dashed for the alley the back door would lead out into. I wanted to follow, but stayed at my post watching the front door just in case. It wasn't much longer before the pushing and shoving to get out the door ended, everyone out and safe from the 'fire', and there'd still been no Dedecchi. I stood in the doorway and looked around.

The smoke had mostly cleared, what was left all collected at the ceiling. No one was inside. _Mm'kay, he took the back way!_ I ran through the abandoned room, skipping over chairs that had been knocked to the floor during the great exodus.

The back door was hanging wide open. Sticking my head outside, I saw...Holy crap, I saw Yuri pinning Dedecchi to the ground in the aikido move I'd shown him what felt like ages ago. And Lloyd was picking himself up out of an upset corner of trash cans, scowling.

"What happened here?" I asked.

The brunet ducked his head, "I forgot I didn't have my swords again." I tried not to laugh as I took his hand to help him up. His left hand, and I got a good look for first time at the blue gem in a gold setting on his hand. There was even a hole cut into the back of his glove to keep it uncovered. _Most people here would think it was a blastia..._

"Well then, Dedecchi," Yuri said in a friendly tone, "That didn't work this time. So are you gonna give up? Or am I gonna have to get rough with you?" It was clear to anyone listening that Yuri really really would like the excuse to rough up Dedecchi some more.

"Pl-please don't!" the man sniveled into the street. "I give up! I-I'll tell you what I did with the blastia core!"

"Old news," Yuri told him, disgust clear in his eyes, "The aque blastia's already back where it belongs."

I knelt down next to them so I could look Dedecchi in the face. "What we're after now is that guy's swords," I jerked my head in Lloyd's direction. He looked uncertain about the situation, but didn't voice any objections. His hands had tightened into fists at his sides. I looked away and back down to Dedecchi. "You wouldn't happen to have a red sword that burns and a blue sword that freezes, would you?" my voice was falsely sweet. "It'd be a shame if you don't, my friend here," Yuri grinned, "would be very disappointed if that were the case."

Dedecchi paled, "I know where they are! I mean, I have them! They're-they're in a warehouse down by the docks!" I sighed. While Dedecchi _could_ be lying for the sake of saving his own skin, I had a hunch that he did have them.

Yuri rose up to his feet, jerking the thief up in the process. Lloyd came over and they both took a firm grip of the man's shoulders to keep him from making another run for it. "Let's go then," Yuri said, still sounding friendly. Dedecchi whimpered.

"I've _really_ missed my swords," Lloyd told him with a smile. "I just don't feel right without them, you know?" Dedecchi started mumbling what I thought might be prayers for his life.

I followed them out of the alley, glancing over in the direction of the crowd still hanging around the front door. It seemed the employees and other customers were figuring out that there'd never been a fire in the first place. The blonde Rita waiter happened to look in our direction, eyes going wide as she saw Yuri and Lloyd forcefully escorting Dedecchi away.

I caught her eye with a wave and put a finger to my lips. Staring at me, I saw the moment comprehension entered her eyes. She smiled and nodded to me, then started heckling and shooing the other waitresses back inside to clean up.

Sucking in a deep breath of air, I blew it out as I looked towards the horizon. The sky was turning red...it would start getting dark before long, and once it was night we could all go talk to Belius.

There was movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked I thought I saw the trailing hem of a green dress slipping around the corner. _Someone wearing a dress in a rough place like this? Maybe it's a noble on vacation..._ I shrugged, picking up the pace to close the distance that had been growing between the guys and me. There was more important business to take care of yet.

x x x

Okay! Chapter needs to end somewhere! So, boys and girls, Lloyd's cameo will continue into the next chapter before I send him on his way. Then we'll hustle him out the door so the show will get back on the road and I'll finally get to the part with Belius!

Had fun playing around with how the minor characters talked in this one. I need more practice at giving people more lower class diction, or accents, or pretty much anything besides what I've stuck to so far.

I found something pretty in a youtube comment.

(¯`v´¯)

(¸.·´ (¸.·´ .·´ ¸¸.·¨ `*~*~*


	51. Chapter 51: Finding Resolve

__Here, everybody take a virtual hammer and hit me on the head with it. I deserve it for taking so damn long. I, in turn, am hitting CERTAIN DISAGREEABLE CHARACTERS on the heads with virtual hammers and Mario bomb-ombs for not cooperating sooner.

...SORRY I'VE BEEN TAKING SO DAMN LONG! D:

Really, I'm very very sorry. I was having trouble, not just with this chapter, but with deciding what CERTAIN CHARACTERS who are about to make some big waves are thinking, and therefor how they'd pull off their goals. Had to resort to very rough and poorly written things where I just talked on in on in their thought patterns. None of them are going to be published on fanfiction, so that plus parts of this chapter I kept rewriting wholesale equals about half of this month's writing you will never see.

Did some story skimming and simple math, Letha has been on Terca Lumireis for about 56 days (give or take a few). Just shy of two months. Then I tried to figure ahead a bit, and there's gonna be a lot of time skipping due to travel and riding on boats and chasing people around... I think we can place the story's timeline at being somewhere in the Terca Lumireis equivalent for mid to late July. Maybe early August. I'm not entirely sure though. There's only a single instance, that I remember at least, when the season is veeery indirectly referenced in a way that implies it's colder in one area than before. For the sake of plot, of course.

More arts from me in my DA account (like I promised last time...) and another fanart from Natsuki Ayaka (I'm so sorry it always takes me so long to credit you for those!) http: / natsuki ayaka. deviantart .com/ gallery/#/d49s1fd

Anonymous (I feel like I should be able to guess who you are, but it escapes me...Sorry?):

SYMPHONIA SECTION REFERENCE, WHERE? Oh, heheh. ;p You'll see~

Letha doesn't exactly think of Lloyd as a Gary Stu (though the ending of the game has a bit too much of a tendency in that direction =_=;), more it irritates her that he fits the generic profile of any hero in the majority of games targeted to the young adult. Not that she has anything against him in particular, just a sense of SEEN THIS ALREADY. She's too genre savy.

Sorry there's no freebie giveaways, but the big 50 snuck up on me and this part is a tad too complicated for me to spare time to work on side stories right now. But hey, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are coming up. The holiday spirit usually puts me in a giving mood. ;)

Angelic:

Well, you'll either cringe or actually really want to see it. The craziest ones (that I'm actually willing to mention)? ZagixLetha and YeagerxLetha. I ACTUALLY THINK I COULD MAKE WORKABLE PLOTS FOR THOSE, WTF? Further example? Letha teaching Yeager about Russian Roulette. Yes, I very much want to explore that. Blame Lady Gaga's song Poker Face for playing on the radio at work.

Lllllooooooyd. He hogs the spotlight. Seriously, I was like "Go away already, Lloyd! I already gave you your moment of awesome!"

bright night:

Everyone's gonna be on the edges of their seats once that part comes. I'll strive not to disappoint! Oh, wait...other than...taking a big chunk of time to get to that?

Kyushen:

This part with Lloyd is rather fillerish, and a bit of unexplored territory for me. His cameo is AccessBlade's prize, but I wanted to work it into events in a way that would advance, if not the main plot, then at least Letha's current emotional state and where she's standing with the rest of the group (specifically Yuri). Either way, his time with us is brief, though longer than I thought it would be, and he's moving on~

x x x

Chapter 51: Finding Resolve

x x x

"And that's where we're at so far," I concluded my report. Estelle and Karol were nodding while Rita stood off to the side waiting impatiently. Raven, to all appearances, had fallen asleep while sitting on the steps outside the Coliseum.

It had been about two hours since the guild had split up to search for information on Lloyd's swords. Though I'd say we'd done better on that score than one could realistically hope, we didn't actually have the swords back yet. And, as it had dawned on Yuri and he pointed out to me (while he and Lloyd were still dragging along a whimpering, cringing Dedecchi), if the three of us (plus Repede) went to fetch the swords on our own without even telling the others, Judith would never forgive us. She'd probably start complaining that every time we came to Nordopolica Yuri and I took all the fun work for ourselves.

Which was why I'd made a run back to our agreed meeting point to direct the others down to the docks. I sprinted all out so hard for awhile that I think I barely avoided running over some old lady carrying a basket of flowers.

Judith was probably well on her way already. She'd been the first to arrive, before me even, and had chosen to go on ahead while I waited for the others. The excited look in her eyes had brought to mind a child that had been promised that, if she was a good girl, mommy and daddy would buy her an ice cream cone. Yeah, she was totally spoiling for a fight. Maybe secretly hoping that Dedecchi would be stupid enough to try and make a break for it.

Then Karol and Raven had come along, the older man ambling along at his own pace and the boy looking crestfallen. Which made it no surprise to hear that they'd had no luck with their search. I had ruffled the Ace's swooshy rooster hair while telling him to cheer up, because I had a story about Yuri kicking ass and getting info. I'm a bit sorry to say that those were my exact words. ...What does it say about me and my usual behavior when they took my words in stride?

Well, before I got very far in the quick rundown of recent events (with absolutely no intention of mentioning how Earth had come up as a conversation topic) Estelle and Rita arrived. So I'd started over again and now everybody was happily on the same page. More or less.

"What are we waiting for?" Karol asked our group as a whole, "Let's go meet up with them!"

"I'm so happy for you, Karol," Estelle was saying, "This is really good for the guild!"

Rita made a noise of mildly irritated dismissal. Or _pffssh_, as I for some reason mentally spelled it. "So we found the idiot's swords," she grumbled while crossing her arms, "I'm more interested in getting some payback on that Dedecchi creep for using my name!"

"Sounds to me like you'll hafta get in line behind Yuri fer that," Raven said, proving that he was, in fact, awake and paying some attention. Though he still sat with his back against one of the broken remains of a stone pillar (wonder how long ago this place was constructed, and _why_ there are broken columns and stuff nobody's bothered to fix), arms folded behind his head and eyes closed. I dunno, _I_ could never sleep comfortably like that, but Raven had a cat's tendency to sleep anywhere.

Wanting to head off any more spat fests or distractions, I thumped a fist against my chest and snapped it out straight in front of me again. "Dockward, ho!"

There was the expected moment of silence and awkward 'let's all stare at Letha' before Rita just snorted a "weirdo" and we finally started dragging our butts into gear. Eager guild boss Karol led the way, and I found myself walking next to Estelle. The princess had her hands folded in front of her and kept glancing at me as if she had something she wanted to say.

"Letha," she finally nerved herself up to it, "Can I ask you something?" I hummed a questioning note. The girl looked down at her interlaced fingers, pink hair swinging forward to cover her eyes. "I was just wondering...how do you always manage to stay so confident in yourself?"

Moment for a classic spit take or fall over comically scene right there. Fortunately I lacked a drink and there were no loose stones in the street we were taking so all I responded with was a clever, "You think I'm whut now?" Shaking my head a bit in disbelief, I had to say, "Really, I can see how you'd think that about Rita," the mage, who'd been listening in (they all were), looked away and mumbled something that sounded embarrassed, "Judith, or Yuri. But how does silly old me figure in there?"

Raven whined, "Hey, how come ya didn't mention us?"

"Yeah!" Karol chimed in.

Rita made a disgusted noise, "Because you're a wimp and he's an old pervert."

The bickering and bemoaning that started actually provided a distraction so the princess could quietly say to me, "Because it never bothers you what other people might think about the things you do. Like just a little while ago, you say the oddest things and just laugh everything else off."

I tilted my head a bit, finding an angle that let me look into her greenish blue eyes (I couldn't decide if I thought they seemed closer to green or blue). Though it forced me to walk a bit sideways (and it would be just my luck if that were to trip me up instead). "I still don't get it Estelle. I always thought _you_ were the one who's nice and open about who she really is and wants to do. I'm just being the class clown.

"Or one of them," I amended, nodding in the direction of Raven as the archer (very stupidly) had tried to ruffle Rita's hair and got his foot stomped on in retaliation. That got Estelle to giggle a bit, and I smiled at the sound. We passed from the stone streets and merchandise filled windows to the elevated wooden boardwalks that bridged the water. Not much further before we were in the harbor proper. "Besides, you've totally got me beat. You ran away from a castle and legion of knights, who are still trying to catch up to you, to do what you thought was right. That totally puts anything I've done to shame." The princess blushed slightly at the reminder of her past headstrong antics.

"I wouldn't say that exactly," Rita piped up, having apparently caught up the thread of our conversation once again. "What about that time you told Alexei to take a hike?"

"Woah," Raven looked at me with mixed respect and shock, "You've got guts if ya said that to the head honcho of the Imperial Knights."

I flushed, "Th-that's not what I said!"

Estelle, though, was nodding vigorously, "That's what I mean! I've never seen someone just turn him down like that before, but you did like it was nothing!" _I was scared shitless..._

And Karol saw fit to add, "He really didn't seem happy about it either."

"Why, looky there!" I exclaimed loudly, "We're already at the docks! Come on, everyone, let's go find the others!"

"Heh, look at her gettin' all embarrassed," Raven teased.

I clapped my hands over my ears. "Not listening anymore!" A quick glance in Estelle's direction and I saw that I'd gotten her laughing again, hand covering her mouth politely but doing nothing to hide the sparkle in her eye. Then I was powerwalking ahead of the group and the smile fell away from my own face. _How wrong you are, Estelle. I'm not like this because I don't care what people think, I'm like this because I _do_ care and don't want to be hated. I'd rather have everyone laughing with me._

_God, on top of being paranoid I'm insecure_.

My internal monologue of angst was derailed when a nearby _crash_ actually made me jump a bit. All of us looked around to see what had happened. "I think it came from over there!" Karol pointed out a seedy looking building with paint peeling from the walls and the door half hanging off its hinges. Another crash shook the building, the door sagging just a little bit more. What looked like a giant nickel the size of a dinner plate rolled out, turning an arc as gravity tried pull it down, and toppled over with a clatter.

"Huh," I said, debating whether I should pick it up. "Hope that wasn't important."

Yet another crash inside (and a muffled "ooow") almost drowned out Raven saying, "I'm guessin' this is the place."

Estelle was alarmed by the commotion inside the building. "Are they fighting someone?"

"That or they're really getting into cleaning house," I quipped, stepping over the jumbo nickel on my way to the door. I took in the tableau inside and decided that I couldn't have been more wrong. Obviously the place was used as storage, there were crates, chests, and boxes stacked everywhere, carpets and rugs rolled up or that had been knocked over and started to unroll, tables laden with odd bric a brac of all natures, weapons held in barrels and wooden racks, and sheet covered shapes that might have hidden furniture. Everything was covered by a fluffy coating of dust that had been stirred up in clouds by the people moving inside and tickled at my nose, making me fight back the urge to sneeze.

Lloyd was on the floor lifting an upturned box off of his head with several others scattered around him, spilling a miscellaneous collection of items on the ground. Similar messes surrounded other opened boxes and chests, indicating that the twinswordsman had been going through them all in the search for his swords. And that more than one stack of boxes had been completely knocked over in the process. Yuri and Judith were both elbows deep in other piles of clutter doing their part to add to the mess.

Last and least, Dedecchi had been tied to a chair in the middle of the room with some rope they had evidently found. He was placed so that it was easy enough for any of them to keep an eye on him while they worked just by looking up or over a shoulder. Repede sat nearby him as extra insurance, curling a lip back to show fang and growling whenever the thief began wriggling too much for the warrior dog's liking.

I stepped inside so that I wasn't blocking the others while asking, "So how goes the scavenger hunt?"

"There's too much junk here!" Lloyd complained as he tossed the box he'd taken off back onto the pile. Then, oddly, he shuddered and looked around wildly. "I almost expected the professor to show up and hit me again..." he muttered.

"Be careful with that 'junk'!" Dedecchi berated him. "There are irreplaceable artifacts the stupid nobles would pay through the nose to get their hands on!" Judith gave him a significant look while fingering a stiletto knife she'd found, making him shut his mouth in a hurry.

"Our 'friend' with the sticky fingers," Yuri tilted his head in Dedecchi's direction, "has pretty bad habit of forgetting where he leaves other people's things."

"Is it really necessary to tie him up?" Estelle asked, looking at Dedecchi. However, despite her concerns, she made no movements to suggest she was thinking of untying him.

"Safer than letting him be," Judith remarked as she dropped the stiletto on a small antique looking table and picked up a small glass figurine to examine curiously. "Otherwise he might find a chance to pull some trick to escape."

Yuri tossed aside a funky looking statue of a monkey holding a staff and picked up the thought from there, "With all the junk lying around," ("It's not junk!") "it'd be real easy for him to throw something dangerous at us before we could stop him."

Lloyd had started in on a pile of chests in a corner, removing the ones from the top of the stacks to make them easier to check through. And Karol had crossed the room to help him out. "There really is a lot of stuff in here," the Ace commented, "It's going to take awhile to find just a pair of swords in all this."

_It seems to me you're all getting distracted from the swords and are just looking at anything that seems interesting._ I couldn't help but sigh as Karol and Lloyd both began exclaiming in excitement as the first chest they opened was filled with masks that looked like they'd been made for Mardi Gras. Estelle and Rita had gotten into a box of books, and apparently they'd both found something interesting as they were paging through a couple of parchment brittle texts rather than looking at anything else.

Realizing I'd lost track of Raven, I looked around and almost immediately found him standing by another open chest with folds of garishly colored clothes spilling over the sides. He was grinning at me from under a gold and jewel encrusted crown perched lopsidedly on his head, a heavy looking gold and ruby scepter in hand.

"All hail the king of the perverted old fools," I said sardonically.

He held out another crown, which I'd guess were probably counterfeits or gold painted stage props. "Here's one fer the queen of the singin' drunks!" Solemnly he dropped the ridiculous thing on my head.

My face flamed hot for a few seconds before I regained my composure and smiled graciously at him. "If his majesty brings that incident up again, he'll become the king of the eunuchs."

"Righto, queen of the forgiving and merciful!" Raven easily caught my crown when I plucked it off and tossed it at him, dumping both fake headpieces back into the chest. He kicked it back out of the way, causing it to bump into another one that shuddered a bit from the impact.

Lloyd whooped and lifted a pair of swords into the air over his head. "Found them!"

"Awesome!" Karol cheered. Seeing the real things, I had to admit they did look cool. The red and blue were both vivid in color to the point that they seemed to shine with their own internal light. The blue Vorpal sword had a watery transparency, and seemed to even have bubbles trapped inside that moved in a small current. The red Flamberge was no less impressive, the red shifting in vibrancy like tongues of flame were dancing inside.

"Neat," I understated. How I wished there was someone present who would get if it I did the Zelda _da da da daaa~_ music for when you find a key item. _Lloyd found the Material Blades! Set them to A in your menu and press A to use them!_

"So, Lloyd, what are you going to do now?" Yuri was asking while I continued telling myself about using the toggle stick for a spin attack, and making the attack even stronger with a magic meter. How fortunate that these people couldn't read minds.

"Well, I-" despite my nostalgic inside jokes I was still paying enough attention to catch the shift in Lloyd's expression from elation to alarm when he did something of a double take in my direction, "Look out!"

Alerted by the look in his eyes I was already turning to look behind me, falling back into a more defensible stance. I'd thought that by this point I was ready for whatever surprise Terca Lumireis would throw at me, but I was proven wrong when I could only gawk as the fanged treasure chest threw itself at me with its mouth, er, its lid agape. _Mimic?_ was the only clear, though still confused, thought in my head. Rather than drawing Oberon or Gemini to defend myself, I backpedaled while trying to make sense of having a _box_ trying to _gnaw my face off_.

"Raging Tiger Blade!" A red blur rocketed past me, and gleaming red and blue blades stabbed into the fake chest repeatedly. The fierce onslaught stopped the chest in its tracks, and Lloyd (who had already shocked me with his speed in executing that maneuver) used the opening he'd made to slash both swords upwards and lift it into the air. It was airborne for less than a second before the Flamberge and Vorpal smashed it back down to the floor.

An admiring whistle and someone clapping punctuated the show. Lloyd grinned cheekily, "How's that? Really cool, huh?" Then he beamed down at the swords in his hands. "It really does feel best to have these back!"

My eyes dropped to the floor. The mimic, or that's what it would have been called in Final Fantasy, had been sliced into three nearly even pieces, smaller chunks and slivers splintering off. Saliva dripped from its 'mouth' to pool on the floor, but it was irrefutably dead. _This..._ I thought_, This is someone who saved an entire, no, who saved _two_ worlds. This was just a warm up exercise to him_.

But when I looked up again, what I saw was Lloyd standing by Karol, showing the Ace how to properly hold the two swords, laughing and giving encouragement when the boy flailed them around in a poor imitation of the Raging Tiger Blade we'd just seen. _No, not an exercise_, I smiled,_ just him trying to keep the people around him safe. That's how he ended up saving his world in the first place._

Funny thing, that. Just how many RPGs start the adventure with the main hero(es) just trying to protect the people closest to them? And then in turn it becomes a journey to protect the world itself?

_Heh, even this. Yuri left Zaphias to get the aque blastia back for the people of the lower quarter, and Estelle wanted to warn Flynn of danger. In that case..._ I clenched my left hand into a fist, _In that case, just what am I doing?_

"The question is," I blinked and looked up as Raven spoke, "jus' how did a Fake get in here?"

"That's right," Estelle realized, "It shouldn't be possible for monsters to be inside the barrier like this."

Judith lifted a hand and pensively tapped a finger against her pursed lips. "Well, there is one way it's possible," she looked sidelong at the bound Dedecchi as she said this.

Yuri had come right to the same conclusion as her, "Yeah, something tells me our 'friend' here might even know something about it." The black haired swordsman clapped a hand on the thief's shoulder and leaned over to smile menacingly at him. "Or did you forget about that too?" Dedecchi was shaking so badly there were little scraping noises from the chair legs moving across the floor by miniscule amounts.

"Huh?" both Lloyd and Karol appeared confused.

Rita shook her head and made a _tsk_ sound. "Isn't it obvious? He brought that thing in here to chase off anyone who tried to steal from him."

"No one is more likely to have precautions against thieves in place than a thief," I commented. One recurring trend in human nature; we expect others to be as ourselves. An honest person, even a realistic one, expects a certain level of honesty from others. But if we're dishonest what we expect is fraud and trickery. I glanced at Lloyd, who was making an 'oh, I think I get it' face, _case in point._

"So what're we supposed to do with this guy now?" Lloyd asked as he returned Flamberge and Vorpal to their rightful homes in the sheaths hung from his crisscrossed belts.

"I demand that you let me go this instant!" Dedecchi blustered. It was spoiled when he cringed away from the threat of the fist Yuri raised as if about to sock the rat in the face.

Estelle folded her hands and said firmly, "We should take him to the authorities to be properly punished." _Ah, so much more civilized than, say, beating him black and blue. Not as much fun though._

Raven scratched at his chin and shrugged, "I guess that'd mean handin' him over ta Palastralle for judgement."

A shadow of a grimace passed across Yuri's face, the swordsman shutting his eyes briefly. But when they opened again they were as clear as ever as he smirked. "Yeah, and I bet they'll be real happy if we tell them about this pack rat's nest." Dedecchi groaned but made no other protest.

x x x

We handed Dedecchi over to the first group of Palestralle guards we found. Once they heard the story they immediately sent runners ahead to make sure there was a secure place where thief could be kept until they decided what to do with him. Give him to the empire to deal with, or administer his punishment according to guild laws? I wasn't sure which seemed more likely, but I was certain that they'd see that he was punished accordingly.

And without more blood being spilled.

"I'm glad you were able to find your fathers' swords again," Estelle was saying. We were in the middle of saying our goodbyes to Lloyd, who wanted to be on his way as soon as possible. Not that he actually told us where he was going.

Lloyd patted one of the hilts fondly. "I really can't thank you guys enough for helping me get them back. I owe you guys!"

"Nah, don't worry about it," Yuri waved it off. "We were able to finally catch Dedecchi thanks to this." _Yeah, and Lloyd actually paid more gald than he agreed on before with Karol. Huzzah! We're not totally flat broke!_ It would have been rude of me to say that out loud.

Raven lowered his arms from behind his head and pushed off from the wall he'd borrowed to lean against. "Not ta be the wet blanket here, but don't we all have places ta go?"

"That's right," Judith folded her arms over her middle, "We need to go meet with Belius tonight, and I'm sure Lloyd has somewhere he's supposed to be."

"Oh right," the twinswordsman realized suddenly, "I didn't even tell anyone that I was leaving!" He rubbed his head, mussing up his brown hair further. "They're definitely not gonna be happy with me for disappearing again..."

"Sounds like you should be going home," I said softly.

Yes, it had long since occurred to me that if Lloyd got to Terca Lumireis with the Eternal Sword then it should be well within its abilities to send me home. Yet without a word I watched Lloyd Irving turn his back and start walking away from us, my mouth setting into a firm line when he looked back for a final wave when Karol shouted, "See you again sometime!" That he was following the road that would get him out of Nordopolica the fastest did not escaped my notice.

Yuri placed his off hand on his hip and got back to business. "We should take the chance to get anything else we need before going to see Belius," the swordsman told the group as a whole. "Whatever the Knights are up to, we need to be ready for trouble any minute."

Everyone nodded in agreement as Judith suggested, "We can all meet up at the inn and go see her from there."

As the group split up I watched Karol leave with Repede listing aloud the supplies he could stock up on, Judith went off on her own, and Rita standing by as Estelle admired the flowers in the basket an old woman wrapped in a shawl was showing her. Unnoticed I slipped away on my own.

x x x

"Lloyd!" The brunet turned at my call. He'd been just about to leave the city and looked restless as he waited for me to catch up.

"What is it? Something wrong?"

Looking around quickly, I pointed out a somewhat more private spot that was a small alcove in a building's outer wall. "Let's talk there, so no one should overhear too easily."

The twinswordsman seemed mystified but complied. "What'd you want to talk about?" he asked again as he leaned back against the innermost part of the stone wall.

"I..." Fidgeting with my braid in my hands, I wondered just what it was I hoped to learn. "You said before that you knew someone who came from Earth. Who was that?"

"Huh? You mean Allie?" My stomach made a weird flip flop. Allie wasn't a familiar name, not from the meager memories of my personal life or from any of the (legion) of Self Insert fanfictions I'd looked into as a guilty pleasure. _Could this mean that this other person was spirited into Symphonia by fairies?_

Lloyd continued speaking to fill the silence. "Allie's one of my friends from the journey of regeneration. She also helped a lot when there was the trouble with the Vanguard and Niflheim." Placing this Lloyd as coming from _after_ both the original game and its sequel, Dawn of the New World.

Which would explain why I'd had that feeling of _off_ness before about his appearance. He had to be at least nineteen, if not older, while I'd always imagined him being seventeen (as most fans probably did). It might not seem like a big deal, but it was like the difference between guessing someone was a high school student or a college student based on appearance alone.

_No, poor analogy_, I corrected my thought_, anything involving school is automatically a bad example when it comes to Lloyd_. Who'd been babbling on while trying to fill the uncomfortable silence by trying to explain about the journey of regeneration and the Vanguard and so on, doing a marginally better job than Karol would have. To be fair, he was probably muddled by trying to remember that (supposedly) I had no idea what he was talking about and kept backtracking to better explain something earlier.

"And..." I forestalled his explanation of how his world was really two worlds that were one again, "This Allie... How did you feel when you found out she was from another world entirely?" This was what I wanted to know the most. "Did she...tell you from the start?"

Lloyd blinked at me for a moment with his head tilting, then slowly said, "So...they don't know you're from Earth?"

My head jerked back as that startled me, "Eh?"

"Well, one of you guys had to be from Earth or you wouldn't know about it," the twinswordsman shrugged, "But just now it sounded like the rest of your friends don't know." _Ah, I slipped up. Lloyd isn't book smart, but that doesn't make him an idiot either. In fact, that makes him more dangerous than someone like, say, Yuri, who just so matter of course is watching and making connections all the time._

I let out a slow exhalation while running the fingers of one hand through my hair. "Yes," I admitted, "I'm from Earth. And no, I haven't told anyone but Yuri and Raven. I didn't even mean for them to find out."

Lloyd folded his arms over his chest and furrowed his brown in a bothered expression. "I don't get it," he told me in clear annoyance, "What's so bad about this Earth that you guys don't want to talk about it?"

"That's a real good question." Yuri ninja'd up from around the corner. Ha. Well, my private out of the way spot for a chat wasn't so private. If I hadn't been so stunned by Lloyd's question I probably would have been ticked with myself for that.

But..._What's so bad about Earth?_ Didn't that question brush against something I'd thought of before? _What's so bad about them finding out I'm from Earth?_

The last time we were in Nordopolica, the realization had come that I'd accepted the possibility that I might never see Earth again. An acceptance that wasn't as painful as it should've been, likely due to the progressive loss of memories of my personal life creating a cushion of detachment. And not much later I'd had that enlightened moment when I realized that, if not for the issue of the video game, my origins would mean very little in the overall scheme of things.

"I...don't even know why I don't want to talk about it..." I murmured, eyes dropping to stare without seeing at my feet. "Talking about it just...hurts..." _What's so bad about Earth? What's so bad is that it won't ever truly be my home again._

"Letha..." Yuri stopped, hesitating to say what could be the wrong words. "If you miss Earth so much, why aren't you trying to find a way back?"

"Um," Lloyd drew the other man's attention, but I very reluctantly dragged my gaze back up from the dust and mud stained toes of my boots, "If you want to go to another world, I can help."

"You can?" The revelation didn't surprise me as it had Yuri.

"Yeah, now that I've got these back," Lloyd patted the hilts of his paired swords again. "I was actually trying to go see Earth in the first place, I was curious about the world Allie came from."

Yuri placed a fist on one hip while eying the swords with new appraisal, "No wonder you didn't want to give them up and get new ones.

"So, what are you going to do?" Yuri turned back to me with a neutral expression. At my questioning look he shrugged indifferently, "We'll just tell the others that you needed to go home. After all, you might not get another chance." There was a small pang of pain in my chest at how uncaring he seemed about me leaving, but I ignored it. In my mind's eye I replayed images of Tales of Vesperia, when Yuri would put up a similar front when leaving a decision to Estelle for the princess to make for herself. The swordsman wasn't the type to let his own emotions get in the way of what was best for others.

Wearily, I shook my head and smiled at Lloyd, "Thank you, but no. Before I can even consider going home, I need to finish what I've started here." It had never been my intention to ask the brunet to send me home, though I was touched that he offered. But there was no going home for me until Nevi decided he was done with my help. Not to mention my unwillingness to burden my family with an amnesiac daughter.

Lloyd met my look with a measuring stare of his own that gave me the uncomfortable feeling that he not only understood, but understood more than I was saying... A grin split his face and he laced the fingers of his hands behind his head while saying, "If that's what you want. Though if I'm ever in this world again I'll drop by and see if you need a trip back."

My smile warmed a bit, feeling more genuine. "Thanks, I appreciate it."

"And," Lloyd stopped and shot a look at Yuri before huddling over next to me and speaking in a whisper behind a raised hand, like we were conspiring school children scheming under the teacher's nose, "Though I don't really get what's up with those fairy guys Allie told me about, and you probably have your own reasons, but I really think it'd help if you just told your friends everything." I gaped at him in shock and Lloyd laughed, "Dwarven vow number forty one: It's better to begin in the evening than not at all."

The corner of my mouth quirked up wryly, "Those vows cover nearly everything, don't they? But I'm surprised you know about...that."

Lloyd straightened spoke clearly again, "Like I said, I don't really get it much. But won't you feel better once you've told them?" He stepped out of the cubby in the wall and said, "But I've really gotta go now, if I take any longer they'll be mad at me back home!" With one last wave he jogged off out of the Nordopolica gate, probably to find a place to use the eternal sword without being noticed.

Yuri and I watched until we could no longer see the bright red smear of his jacket against the surrounding grass plains. "Are you really okay with this?" Yuri asked.

"Sorry, did you want me to leave with him?" I asked dryly.

"Nah, then I'd have to put up with Karol and Estelle complaining about how you never finished telling that story. But," the brief moment of levity passed quickly, "what was that about...fairies, did he say?"

"Snoop," I scolded, "I already promised I'd tell you guys. But that particular story's a long one, so it needs to wait til we're not in such a rush."

He gave in at that, "Right, so I guess we should get back to the others." We both left the alcove in the wall and turned back to go deeper into the city and the crowds that accompanied city life.

We'd only gotten to the boardwalk bridges again (in a silence just shy of being awkward) when I felt a sense of deja vu.

"'Scuse me, but can I ask you something?" There was a girl stopping passerbys in the crowd, asking them each some question I couldn't really hear clearly. As I watched, the women in leather and a witch hat (the one I had stopped Lloyd from bothering earlier?) turned and pointed in Yuri's and my direction. The girl, a strawberry blonde in blue and black nodded at the woman before dashing across the road to us.

"Hey, sorry, but have you..." she trailed off and stared at Yuri dazedly.

The black haired swordsman raised an inquiring eyebrow, "What, there something stuck on my face?" I rolled my eyes in amusement. _Charming face, not so charming personality._ Though if Yuri knew how to use his looks to his advantage, he'd probably become a menace to women everywhere.

The girl shook her head, "Sorry, I was just a little surprised. You look like someone I wasn't expecting to see." For some reason she glanced at me a bit curiously while saying that. "I'm trying to find a friend of mine, and somebody said they saw you with a person that matches his description." She was about to say more when there was a commotion from in the crowd. "Oh right," raising two fingers to her lips, she blew a piercing whistle and yelled, "Noishe! Over here!"

"Noishe...?" _You have got to be..._

Sure enough the pony sized green and white protozoan that only vaguely resembled a canine came bounding out of the crowd, people nearly jumping aside or pushing each other to get out of his way. Following him were a pair of Palestralle peace keeping guards who gave the girl an earful while she patted Noishe on the head. She apologized on her "dog's" behalf and promised she'd keep a closer eye on him.

"That's a...dog?" Yuri sceptically looked over the protozoan sitting at the girl's feet.

She shrugged it off, "Close enough. Like I was about to ask," she snapped right back full circle to where we'd started, "have you guys seen a guy dressed in red with white ribbons, spikey swooshy hair like this," she made some gesture with her hands that could be mistaken for interpretive dance (...), "and uses two swords?"

I could have just said "yes" but my mischievous streak insisted I dig the wanted poster I was still carrying out of its pocket. "You mean this guy?"

She snatched the drawing from my hands and needed only a quick glance at it, "DAMMIT LLOYD, AGAIN?" Seething, she crumpled the poster up into a small wad and tossed it away. "How does he keep getting those?" Noishe whined in concern for his human friend.

Yuri muttered something that sounded like, "He wasn't kidding about that?" Then more loudly, "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you're Allie," he tossed out in the face of her simmering murderous intent directed at the absent twinswordsman.

While that didn't precisely calm her down it did bring her back to the conversation at hand so she tried to get a reign on her temper. "Yes, I'm Allie, but how did you know my name?"

"From Lloyd," while Yuri briefly recounted the meeting with the brunet and the recovery of the swords (Allie's eye twitched when she heard that Lloyd _lost_ the _Eternal Sword_) I looked her over a bit more carefully.

Round about Estelle or Judith's age, an inch or so shorter than me, shoulder length hair decorated by winged hairclips (though lacking the blastia that mine sported), and green eyes. Black shorts...blue tank top...crossed belts...exsphere on her chest... Exspere? I hoped the red stone displayed on her chest in a golden setting was just a regular exspere, I wouldn't envy her if it were a cruxis crystal. But the sight of it still irritated me because the gold setting, a keycrest meant to make using the stone safer, was molded in a shape like an abstract fairy. Or maybe a dragonfly with oddly shaped wings.

..._So far, I'm not liking the fae folks' sense of humor_, I thought with a certain grim displeasure, tracing a thumb over the hidden lines of my own tattoo that resembled either a butterfly or strangely petaled flower.

"So...are you really from Earth?" Yuri asked her bluntly. She spluttered, caught between denial and confusion (and I imagine Lloyd was going to get a stern talking to about sharing other people's secrets) while I facepalmed. "If I didn't know better I'd say you guys are starting an invasion."

"Pfft," I rolled my eyes and threw up my hands ostentatiously, "Didn't you know, Yuri? About a quarter of your population has already been brainwashed to serve as our minions when we conquer this unsuspecting planet."

"Really?" he deadpanned, "Guess that explains why so many of the nobles act like brainless asses."

I nodded seriously, "Of course. And now that you've uncovered our diabolical plan, I'm afraid we can't let you live."

"You guys are weird," Allie informed us. Noise barked as if in agreement. "So where's Lloyd now?"

"Uhh," I grinned a bit sheepishly, "You actually just missed him. He used the sword to leave just, I dunno, five minutes ago? Hopefully he'll end up in Sylvarant this time..."

"Great, just great," she grumbled. "Come on, Noishe, let's get Ariel to send us after him again." She absentmindedly touched her hand to the exsphere on her chest, or rather the crest it was in, giving me an interesting guess as to who Ariel was.

"Wait, before you go-" the strawberry blonde looked back to me, stopping from following the road outside of Nordipolica, "I just wanted to ask..." I glanced at Yuri, reluctant to voice my question while he was there.

He took the hint. "Don't take too long, we don't want to wait for the next new moon to talk to Belius," he reminded me as he headed back for the inn on his own.

"Belius?" Allie repeated, then looked at me sympathetically. "I think I remember about that part. Will you be alright?"

I nodded, "I refuse to just stand back and let her die. I'll do something. But what I wanted to ask..." I nervously rubbed the back of my left hand through the glove. "Lloyd looked about twenty, he was talking about the vanguard, and he said you'd been with them since the regeneration journey. So you've lived out two full games now, and then some." I looked up and into her green eyes. "Why haven't the fairies let you go home yet?" _No, there's something that bothers me even more than that..._

Allie shrugged, "To be honest? I don't really want to go home. My parents didn't...well, let's just say they didn't get what it means to love your kid." For a moment her jaw clenched, as if striving to hold back a flood of choice words on the subject. Though all she added was, "The less said about them, the better. And I didn't have any real friends on Earth, definitely not like I have now. Actually, if I didn't have to track down Lloyd, I'd never let Ariel send me somewhere other than Sylvarant or Tethe'ella anymore. That's where I really feel at home now."

So this other helper of the fairies didn't have strong attachments to Earth? Was that on purpose when they chose her? For that matter...what about Chase? What were his reasons? _But, again, what I really want to ask right now..._

"What about your memories? Have you...been forgetting what your life on Earth was like?" I dreaded the answer, everything she had already told me hinted at a prospect I didn't like, but I still needed to hear...

Allie blinked in confusion at me, "What do you mean? It's been over two years, but I haven't forgotten all that much."

_Dammit, Nevys._

x x x

We had to part after that. I would've liked the chance to ask if Allie knew what the full story behind the heirloom pieces was, but my half baked plan to save Belius didn't leave me any time for a Q and A. Allie and Noishe were also in a hurry to follow after Lloyd, and needed to leave before they could get Ariel to help them. Ariel, I gathered, was a fairy with more than enough attitude, but it also seemed she was perfectly willing to give her helper the occasional helping hand or trump card for rough situations.

Unlike _some_ narcistic fairies I could name.

_Save it, try to figure this out later, and maybe you'll get a chance to have a nice, long chat with Nevi soon. Just be sure he can't get away til he finally gives the real deal._

I had taken the quickest route I knew of back to the coliseum, slipping past the area set aside for the inn and to the stairway that was supposed to lead to Belius' chambers in back. On the way I'd been cautious so as not to be spotted by the others, if they stayed at the inn to wait for me then I'd have more time to work with. Instinctively I disliked risking the timing of their meeting being thrown off, but hopefully we'd have plenty of time to chat with Belius afterward.

No, not hopefully, I'd make sure we did.

The door was guarded by a tall man burly with muscle and scar tissue. Seriously, he was bare chested excepting the large crisscrossing belts that supported the hefty axe on his back, leaving all his old battle wounds in the open. Not a bad deterrent, I suppose, to not so subtly warn off troublemakers. And of course the eye patch of rugged badassness was a badge of office declaring he didn't _need_ depth perception to win a fight!

_Gyah, nervous jitters, must be careful I don't say any of these crazy things out loud_.

"Good evening, Natz sir!" said cheerily and respectfully. He gave me a quick yet probably thorough assessment with his single eye, lingering a touch longer on the triad of weapons displayed on my belts.

"Do you have business with the Duce?" he demanded, not in the least bothered that I'd called him by name. Well, duh, authority figures would be used to complete strangers calling them by name...

"Yeah, actually," I shifted my weight nervously from one foot to the other, which he watched me do warily. Better not make any sudden moves around this guy. "I have something to talk with her about. It's a life and death issue."

Natz tried to stare me down, but I matched his glower with a serious look of my own. Finally he said, "I'll pass the message on to Lord Belius."

"No," I gritted, "I _really_ need to be the one to talk with her about this." _Because you'd probably think it was a prank and wouldn't bother_. "And I really need to talk with her _now_."

He was as unaffected as a brick wall, "I'm sorry, but I can't let just anyone in to see the Duce."

Exasperated, I whipped out my trump card. "Because you don't want people to know your Duce is an Entelexeia, right? No worries there, that's old news to me."

"What? Impossible-How do you know about-"

"And SO," I loudly bulled over Natz's words, "I haven't ever _told_ anyone, and never plan to, and I really. Need. To talk with her. _NOW_."

He wavered between acceding and rejecting me again. Arguably he had even more reason to send me away now, since if I knew so much about Belius I could conceivably be a greater threat to her. But I'd gotten Belius' attention, and that was what I had really been aiming for.

"I will speak with her." The voice was a resonant low alto, barely hindered by the heavy door and roughened with age. Involuntarily I swallowed, nervous as a new employee about to get chewed out by the demonic CEO.

"Duce-" he began to protest.

"Natz. Let her pass." Defeated, Natz stepped aside from the door.

"Never speak of this to others," he warned me. I simply nodded and pushed through the door.

Beyond was a corridor with several staircases leading one forward and upwards. The steps, which I had never acknowledged before, were shallower than humans typically designed them, and leveled out into landings more frequently than I'd think necessary. Small blastias set in the walls provided dim lighting that was almost too dim for a human to see by, though perhaps all that an Entelexeia needed?

Studying the architecture allowed me to distract myself as I followed the corridor to its end, trying all the way to find a tapestry close enough to the light for me to make out what the sigil on it was, but all too soon I was standing in front of another door. A statue of a winged creature perched above it, easily three times my size. _Perhaps the image of the Entelexeia that founded this city?_ Now there was a thought. I didn't really know how long Belius had supposedly been around.

Taking a deep breath first to prepare myself, I knocked on the door. "Belius? I'm here."

"Come in."

The door was easier to push open than the one Natz had been standing guard at, but beyond was pitch black darkness. _Belius isn't going to hurt me_, I chastised myself. I stepped through and let the door swing closed behind me.

A moment of silent stillness...and then purple fire sprang into life. Reminding me of stories about will o' the wisps and fox fire, four separate flames burned in midair. They framed the looming figure of Belius, the monstrous appearing Duce of Nordipolica. Describing her was...there was no easy way to truly describe her. In simplest terms one could say she looked like a vulpine version of a centaur.

What would be a human torso was more foxlike than human, perhaps I dare describe its structure as being like an anthropomorphic fox? Her head and face were indisputably that of a fox, though. But never, not back when it was only a game to me and not now, could I figure out what to call those appendages that extended from the back of her shoulders. Extra arms? Some seemed to have hands... Antennae? What?

If I hadn't already known what to expect, I would have been perfectly at a loss for what to do next. Instead I took only a brief moment to take in that yes, that _is_ what Belius looks like, before bowing as respectfully to her as to any of my senseis.

"Duce Belius of Nordopolica, I'm called Letha Vitae, of the guild Brave Vesperia." I hesitated for a heartbeat before blurting, "I don't think you're going to like what I have to tell you."

x x x

_Raven and I both looked at Yuri in surprise._ Accidentallly missed capitalizing the Y on that one. My mind totally went straight to the gutter after that. w

So, I suppoooose technically Access got...two cameos out of this? I allowed it because the idea seemed to work in so well with what I'm doing with the fairies, and I really wasn't expecting that when I said I'd give out this prize to the contest winner. But I don't want everyone to think it's easy to get your own OCs into this fic, if they don't naturally mesh with my planned plot, the best you'll get out of me is a brief meeting, odd conversation that Letha found memorable, or the like. And that would be if I feel you earned it (**)

So...cross your fingers and hope there'll be another contest and prizes, eh? Or just, you know, write me something for the hell of it.

Alastor: You are shameless.

Don't say that as if you don't approve. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and gag down some cold medicine.


	52. Chapter 52: Children of the Earth

__...Thank God you guys don't know where I live.

Angelic:

I really am sorry! D:

And yep. Crazy. And not all that I can think of. Be careful, shippers, or the crazy crack pairings will come and get you.

I did have Raven call it a Fake (once) but in pretty much every other game series I can think of they're called mimics, or I don't remember their names at all. And Dedecchi kept one as a pet *shakes head*.

The Smurfette Principle:

All better now! *Coughs for a minute* ...That was coincidence. And you pretty much summed up two of the biggest issues right now, the third being just how the heck Letha can break the news to the others about being an alien. Fun! (Being concerned on all accounts is very justified.)

x x x

Chapter 52: Children Of The Earth

x x x

Belius lowered her head slightly, bringing us closer to eye level. "My form does not surprise you. You spoke the truth when you said you knew what I am. Tell me what you will, Child of Another World."

I could only very briefly note that I had passed some sort of first impression test before that last part sunk in. "Child of a-how did you know?"

She rumbled a soft laugh from deep inside her chest. "Aer is present in all things of this world, and we Entelexeia can sense its movements. Your body was not born to contain and channel aer, and so the aer rebels within you."

The Duce's long, yellow-orange furred arm reached out until the long black fingers stopped just shy of touching my chest. "Now that you live with aer, absorbing it with each breath you take, it continues to build up and move restlessly inside you." Her finger traced a motion in the air before me not unlike the infinity symbol, the large gold bracelet she wore jangling softly. "With no way to store it as the Entelexeia do, or to process and expel it as the humans and krityans do, the aer collects where it can and forces your body to either adapt or destroy itself." By this point the purple flames had dissapated, their light replaced by the steady radiance of torches and a more blastia like glow from behind her.

Well now, wasn't that a fascinating tidbit of unlooked for information. Which definitely bore looking into at a later date. "But how can you tell from that that I'm from another world? I could be a genetic mutation or something."

The furless black hand (the skin looked a lot like the paw pad of a dog's foot) withdrew from my personal space. "Only once have I met a being with the same restless reserves of aer. A woman with white hair and wings, who came asking after a lost treasure."_ Sybelle Bianca leaves yet another calling card. What will I learn, I wonder, if I follow this bread crumb trail?_ Belius had hesitated for a moment before speaking in an undertone I took as her speaking her own thoughts aloud. "Although, I suspected this woman had her own method of restoring her internal balance... But this is not what you came to speak of." Her attention returned to me and I shook my own head to clear the new possibilities. Not the time for them.

"No, it isn't. Though it may make this easier." I took another steadying breath and plowed ahead. "Even though I'm not from this world, I know about the Entelexeia, the Children of the Full Moon, and what the Children's power can do to this world. The calamity it can unleash."

I hesitated again before speaking all in a rush, "Belius, the Child of the Full Moon is-Estelle _really_ is a good person! But even good people with good intentions make mistakes!"

"Calm yourself," Belius soothed me. "You have no need to defend your friend from me. Unlike my brother, Phaeroh, I have not yet come to the conclusion that killing the Child of the Full Moon is the only recourse."

"It isn't," I was quick to agree, "but Belius, that wasn't what I meant..." Biting my lower lip, I wondered how I could explain so that it made sense. "I should have said that _because_ I'm from another world, I _know_ this. You're going to die tonight!"

The Duce didn't really react to my declaration, at least not in an overtly visible manner. But I had the impression of a wild creature suddenly on the alert, straining its senses for the baying of the hounds on its tail. Still, she sounded composed and authoritative when she demanded, "And how exactly do you 'know' this with such certainty?"

For some reason a strange sense of shame descended on me, causing me to look away as I answered, "I know this story. On Earth, we know about Terca Lumireis because it's part of a series of popular stories. But no one would even imagine it was a real world with real people." _Well, fanfiction aside_. "But I'm _here_, I'm _living_ it, and so is everyone I've met! You're _all_ real, and I can't just stand by when I know what comes next!"

"And you see fit to play as a God would? Choosing who is to live and who is to die?" I looked up, a protest on my lips, and found myself caught in the bottomless pools of Belius' eyes. It was like the wisdom of an entire age had focused itself on me, holding me in place and judging me.

"No," I breathed, voice shaking, "I don't want to be a god. I just...wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't try to help. I don't want to hate myself," the last part was a near inaudible whisper.

Belius continued to stare into my eyes. I could feel a trickle of sweat running down the back of my neck and longed to break eye contact. I didn't dare.

Finally, she spoke, "You are a strange sort of hero, Child of Earth, to make even selfless acts sound as selfish desires."

I flushed and stammered, "I'm not-I'm nothing like a hero!"

"Oh?" the Duce remarked lightly. "You are trying to save my life, are you not? Most would call that the act of a hero."

"This is nothing to joke about!"

"We've come to speak with Belius." Like a specter, Yuri's voice filtered in from nowhere.

"You're..." surprised, I looked around and followed the sound of Natz's voice, "Oh, weren't you the emissary sent by Don Whitehorse?" My confusion lifted when I found a pipe that stuck into the room barely a few feet from where Belius stood. It brought to mind similar contraptions I was given to understand some older ships used for communication.

"Huh, convenient," I murmured. Then I gave Belius a wry look, "I've always wondered how you could hear what was happening outside a door a whole corridor away." From my new position beside Belius, I could see that behind her (and thus very unnoticeable when you're focused on the Duce) was a set of windows with dark iron grilles overlooking the arena of the coliseum. It was lit by the ambient light of the barrier blastia.

While vulpine expressions weren't my area of expertise, Belius seemed amused. "It does serve to give those seeking an audience a rather awed impression, besides its intended uses."

"-wouldn't mind lettin' me through," Raven finished asking Natz.

"Those are my friends out there," I told Belius, "Estelle is with them. And only two of them know I'm not from Terca Lumireis..."_ Or three? I'm wondering how much Judith might have learned from Ba'ul, who as an Entlexeia might have noticed the 'restless aer' thing..._

"You may enter..." Natz's voice drifted to us, "However I must ask the rest of you to withdraw."

"What?" Karol's voice pierced through about half an octave too high, "But why?"

"Belius," I said pleadingly, "Please talk to Estelle. Tell her what she needs to know!"

"If it is so important, why have you said nothing to her?" Belius asked in turn. I hung my head.

"I...I'm afraid of what will happen if anyone finds out how I know all this."

There was silence in Belius' chamber, with Rita's piped in voice asking, "Are you trying to say we can't be trusted or something?"

"NATZ," Belius didn't exactly bellow, but the sheer volume of her powerful voice had me smacking at one of my ears lightly since I'd been standing right next to her. Wow, seemed that pipe thing was only necessary one way.

"Duce, please reconsider-" I don't think Natz liked sending in even more people while he knew I was with the Duce.

"I HAVE SPOKEN." (Covered my ears just in time for that one.)

"...Yes, Duce."

We didn't hear anymore after that. I looked sidelong at Belius, and she correctly interpreted the question in my glance. "Natz only opens the connection when I am sought out for an audience. Otherwise, it remains closed to maintain confidentiality." _Good, would hate it if someone heard my Earth and Stories speech without me knowing it._

"He worries about you."

"Like a mother worries over her brood," she sighed. And then the lights in the room abruptly went out.

"...Do you really do that every time someone comes to talk with you?"

Her laugh rumbled quietly from the shadows, "Only for the first meeting. I have found that it lessens the chances that they will break down my door with weapons in hand. Though not by all that much." I smiled. _I never really expected to _like_ Belius. Not like I thought I'd hate her, but she's pretty cool with a sense of humor to boot._

There was a metallic creak of the door hinges followed by the shuffling of many different pairs of feet trying to feel their way in the darkness. "H-hey!" Karol complained at the darkness, "What's going on?"

"Everybody still here?" Yuri asked and the others sounded off roll call and Repede barked. I couldn't resist tossing my own, "Here!" into the mix.

I was rewarded when Raven asked "...Aren' we comin' up one extra?" which made Karol and Rita squeak. And then Belius' purple foxfire (more appropriate term in this case, I'd think) flared to life and revealed her in all her glory. _Extra points for style!_

Karol stumbled back at the sight. "A-a monster...!"

"And here I had secret hopes we'd get a gourmet meal out of this," Yuri's blase tone was grimly underscored by him flipping his sword over in his left hand, ready to fling the scabbard out of the way. "Wasn't expecting a trap."

Judith stopped him with a hand on his arm, "This isn't a trap. She is..."

Estelle took a hesitant step forward. "Belius?"

"The very same," she confirmed. "I am Belius, Duce of Nordopolica and founder of Palestralle."

"Didn't see this comin'," Raven muttered.

I looked up at Belius from where I stood to her left side. "First meetings, eh? You totally just do this for fun." Her black lips parted in a show of white fangs. _Huh, amused smile or sign of agression? ...Probably a smile, but let's not push it._

"Letha? You're here too?" Estelle finally noticed me. To be fair, I was a lot less noticeable then Belius. There'd be something wrong with you if she didn't monopolize your attention, or most of it, when appearing like that.

"Hey," the Ace sounded hurt, "why'd you come here without us? We were waiting for you!" The rest of the group was giving me looks that ranged from annoyed (particularly Rita) to questioning (especially Yuri). Judith had a particularly enigmatic expression, and I could think of too many reasons why to even begin figuring out what it meant.

I winced apologetically, fiddling a bit with the end of my braid, "Yeah, sorry 'bout that..."

"Do not be angry with your friend," Belius admonished him gently, "She acts with good intentions at heart."

"I bet she does," Yuri said cryptically. '_We'll talk about this later'_ was the vibes I was getting from him, but I could only sigh a little sadly. _Why have I let this go on for so long? All our time would have been much better spent worrying about something else._ "So, you can talk just like Phaeroh, huh? Meaning you're an Entelexeia too?"

His overly familiar tone with Nordoplica's Duce had Karol and me wincing (though considering my most recent attitude and comments I probably had no right to judge). She merely inclined her head, "That is so."

Karol's eyes shot open wide and he started looking around us with fresh amazement. "Th-then the ancient race that built this city was..."

"My brethren and I."

Raven sighed and grumbled something uncomplimentary about the Don under his breath. The Duce fixed her dark eyes on him. "And who might you be?"

"A humble servant of Don Whitehorse," the archer sketched a bow that managed to look both halfhearted and clownish (probably because he hardly bent from the waist at all, but made a lot of unnecessary flourishes with one hand). "I've got a letter for you from him." He sauntered over to Belius' other side while fishing the letter (enveloped a bit mangled from the rigors of travel...whoops) out of an interior pocket of his purple coat.

He continued chattering away as he held out the letter to Belius and she took it delicately in her larger hands. "I've known that old badger too long ta be surprised by who he knows, but just how're you connected?"

"I am indebted to him," she responded as her eyes quickly scanned across the page, "for his assistance during the Great War." Finished reading already, Belius lowered the letter again in order to look Raven in the eye as she spoke.

"The Great War...!" Karol gasped, still overly hyped about the entire situation in general. "So the rumors that you were one of the masterminds behind it are true?"

"Don't be so hasty when you don't have all the facts," I had to say, crossing my arms and making a Rita-like snort of impatience. "Just because Belius was involved does not mean she was responsible for the war itself."

A brief, bark like laugh, "All who participate in war are in part responsible." I fidgeted a little, wondering how I'd been made to feel like a chastised child. "However, I never exceeded that which my duty as an Entelexeia required. I was not a mastermind of anything."

"The Great War was fought against the Entelexeia," the Ace said slowly, unsure if he might be crossing the bounds of respect for the Duce, but reluctant to let go of the matter. I fidgeted more, restless at how the conversation was still_ following the game_ and _not_ leading towards Estelle learning anything important. Eying all the others, I noted that pretty much each of them were being pretty attentive, even Judith considering she probably knew most of it already.

"At any rate," Belius spoke in a conclusive tone, "my acquaintance with the Don dates from those times. I have long lamented that a man of his talent was not born instead as one of my race."

_Woah, wait_, I blinked_, did she...imply she has a thing for Whitehorse? The Duce of Palestralle and Nordopolica is carrying a torch for the Don of Altosk and Dahngrest?_ Totally had gone over my head before, probably due to all the other plot development the game threw in here. _...Damn, the plot's gonna come rolling back in soon_.

"That's the first I'd heard the old man had anything to do with the Great War," Raven commented somewhat petulantly. Well, I guess if you had both the benefits of a Knight Captain and a high ranking guild member, it would be irksome to find out that such a gem of info about a key world figure had slipped through your information netweork.

"It is a subject he takes little pleasure in discussing," and Belius sounded like she didn't want to talk about it much either, but did out of courtesy to us. "The Don has requested my mediation in the current trouble with Phaeroh."

"Belius," I murmured, a hint of pleading slipping into my tone.

The Duce arched her neck so that she was looking down on me at her side. "I shall offer my assistance to the Don for the time being. His request can not lightly be brushed aside. Much as your earlier words can not be easily disregarded." _My words? The ones about her dying, or when I asked her to talk to Estelle?_

And the princess was looking curiously at me. "Letha? You never said before that there was something you wanted to talk about Belius with." Yuri started a bit, almost unnoticeable, and then it was as if he was trying to bore holes in my head with the way he was staring at me.

"Yeah, you still haven't told us what you were doing here!" Karol remembered.

"Nothing impor-" I stopped, mouth snapping shut. Not only was that a really flimsy, transparent lie (who would get an audience with the DUCE about "nothing important?"), but if I didn't stop running soon then Yuri would drag me into it kicking and screaming. I shook my head and sighed once again, "It can wait a little longer. Right now, Estelle, isn't there something more important you should be thinking about?"

"Oh!" the princess realized. With Raven's business done it was her chance to learn about why Entelexeia like Phaeroh wanted her out of the picture. She stepped out to the front of the group and very politely introduced herself. "My name is Estellise, and I was hoping you could tell me about the Children of the Full Moon.

"Phaeroh called me..." Estelle's eyes fell at the unpleasant memory as she raised her clasped hands before her, "He called me an 'insipid poison'." Her voice trembled just a little at the last word. _Aww, she needs a hug._ I very nearly ran over to give her one, but a glomp in the current circumstances seemed a tad inappropriate. I vowed to do so later.

Belius' long arm reached out once more, strange fingers gently cupping Estelle's chin and raising her head. "I am sorry that the words of my brother have troubled you so. I can not but think the knowledge you seek will only cause you further grief, but the Child of the Earth," -and didn't that make Yuri (and probably Raven) snap to attention?- "is of the belief that you should learn the truth."

"Child of the Earth? What is that?" Karol asked the room in general. _I can feel Yuri's eyes burning holes agaaaain..._ How Raven took it, I couldn't really tell since Belius was mostly between us. Judith had a speculative look, but since it was her she could very well be considering some shipperish new pairing. Though I doubt even she'd be thinking of something so off topic...

"Estelle, do you know anything?" Rita questioned the well read princess.

"I don't think so..." she answered uncertainly. In turn she asked Belius, "Does the 'Child of the Earth' have something to do with the Child of the Full Moon?" _They haven't made the connection yet... You know, they're all (besides Yuri and Raven) probably thinking of the soil kind of Earth. Never thought I'd actually be grateful for how mundanely our planet is named_.

"Perhaps," Belius allowed. From my position I could see her tails seemed to be...wagging, for lack of a more dignified term. _So glad to see you're having fun at my expense, centaurian fox woman._ I did not appreciate the time being wasted this way. How long until the Hunting Blades came? "The Child of the Full Moon is a being who's power affects the very balance of this world. The aer-"

From the hall we'd come from rang out the clash of metal on metal, the door shuddering suddenly with a dull bang as if something had been thrown against it. "No..." I groaned, "Not yet!" Unhappily I pulled both daggers from their places on one of my belts.

"What the hell's all that racket?" Raven complained.

The Duce knew as well as I that this was serious; Natz hadn't opened that communication device thing so that she could hear about any newcomers. And given my reason for being here on top of my dread filled reaction she could make a very educated guess. "Perhaps my death has come knocking upon my door."

"Belius!" Judith objected.

The door shuddered again. Relaxing my too tight grip on both Geminis took conscious effort as I expected Clint and Tison to enter-the door was flung into the room itself with Chase coming in back first. His claymore buried itself tip first into the stone floor and cut a furrow several feet long until he stopped, one knee dropping to the ground and hands white knuckled from clinging to the sword hilt.

"Chase?" I said dumbly. "..._Chase?_" I did not put my weapons away. Oh-hohoo, no I did not. And Yuri definitely remembered the last meeting with my fellow Earthling well enough; his own katana was out and ready again.

He raised his head, shaking the loose sandy hair out of his eyes. "Um, yeah. Hi." Then he shrugged sheepishly at Belius. "Sorry, I sorta broke your door." He glanced down at the long slice he'd put into the stone, "And your floor..."

"_CHASE?_"

"At last we've found you, Entelexeia!" _That_ was Tison, as he and Clint made their 'we're so bad we pwn this place' entrance. "Leader of monsters! Origin of evil!"

Karol was thunderstruck. "Tison! Boss!"

Normally I'd make a scoffing retort about how there was so much wrong about his grand opening statement, but instead, "Chase, what in GOD'S NAME are you doing here?

He stood up, pulling his sword from the stone and giving it a quick swipe through the air to shake off the dust and bits of rock still clinging to it. "Plan A was a bust, because Verte is a bitch, so it's plan B."

"Hey!" Tison snarled, "We're talking here!"

"So am I!" I roared back at him. But then Belius' hand firmly squeezed my shoulder and I remembered why I couldn't afford to lose my cool head.

"You've got some twisted tastes, hanging out with freaks like this," Tison sneered at us all, mainly focusing on the Fox Centaur Duce, but seeming to include us all in general under the label of "freak". Which hardly seem fair to me, since he wore that hood thing that covered his eyes and sounded like a halfhearted attempt at a surfer's dialect. I always hated it when he opened his mouth to say something, and it never helped that I hated all the idiotic crap he spewed about monsters = eeeval!

Not to say I liked Clint any better. "Keeping monsters to use in your coliseum?" his voice grated out. "You're an enemy of humanity, and now you die!" _Seriously, what the eff is with their logic? Because _humans_ think it's exciting to watch someone else fight, monsters are kept here for their entertainment. How the Flippin' CRAP does that make someone an enemy of humanity?_ If you were talking about Romans setting lions and such on innocent and defenseless people, that would be one thing, but everything I'd heard was that Palestralle ran a pretty tight ship and only let experienced fighters take risks they could handle. _Last time was a Zagi caused fluke_.

I wanted very much to shout all that back in Clint's face, but that would be pointless. The Hunting Blades were on a crusade. An ignorant unbeliever like me could scream myself blue in the face and never change their minds.

Karol was casting furtive glances behind them, "Wh-where's Nan...?"

"Curious, huh?" the would be surfer was...less sarcastic than I'd have thought. Oookay... "She should be leading the raid on the remaining monsters in the coliseum about now." Oookaaaay...in game land, him divulging this information so easily was solely so the player knew what was going on and what they'd be expected to do. Realistically...I blinked, _Realistically, he probably wouldn't have told us anything. Except maybe to mock us. But it didn't sound much like it_.

...

He began cracking his knuckles with an eager grin. "We Hunting Blades give no quarter to any who would obstruct the justice we mete out, humans or no." _Okay, phony surfer is just another fighting addict who's clinging to an excuse to start brawling with something or someone._ Wouldn't be the first time someone supported a cause just because it happened to allow some of the pasttimes they liked.

"Justice?" I repeated scornfully, despite my earlier resolution not to get into a pointless shouting match that no one could win. "Just slapping the word 'justice' on something doesn't give you automatic authority or the right to be judge, jury, and executioner. It works both ways!" Of course it wasn't until I got to the 'executioner' part that I remembered about the Vigilante in our group. _Dammit, why do I keep doing that?_

"Y-yeah!" I was surprised to hear our Ace chiming in with me. "That's not justice at all!"

"What would you know about justice?" Tison shot back, "You're just a coward who got kicked out!" Karol bit his lip, shoulders shaking as he couldn't find the confidence to stand up against he past 'failure'.

"Enough," Clint growled, reaching behind his back to unhook and swing forward the huge...huuuge...God, could something that size still be classified as a sword? "If you won't attack, then I'll make the first move, beast!"

With a roar he charged forward, sword high above his head and telegraphing his first attack like a neon sign. Not that that made it any easier to stop him than, say, a charging Rhino or truck. That guy was _bigger_ than I remembered!

Tison was a nimble little bugger, easily overtaking his boss and eagerly lunging forward for the first strike. And getting thrown back when he met Yuri's fist in his face. I'd like to say Yuri only beat me to it because he was standing closer to the door.

Judith darted into Clint's path, reaching for the halberd she wore across her own back (I never mentioned, it divided into two pieces so she could carry it more easily), but before she could bring it to bear he bashed her aside with one beefy arm and barreled forward unchecked. The krityan grunted in pain, arm wrapped around her ribs as she tried to get back up.

I couldn't help but cringe back when Clint, practically in my face since I was still standing next to Belius, swung his massive sword down on the Duce.

_Clang!_

...In game, Belius catches the blade on the back of her _freaking forearm_. I remember that quite clearly because, really, didn't that hurt? I opened my eyes, which had squinted shut in sympathetic pain, but that was not what I saw.

Chase was standing in front of Belius and me, claymore up in a guard position with the flat of his blade braced in the palm of his off hand. He grimaced under the strain of holding back the force of Clint's attack. Rocking forward on his feet, he slowly pushed until with a final shove he forced Clint to back off a few steps.

"Chase?" I asked, confused.

He shrugged, panting from the effort the standoff had cost him. "Plan B." And then he grunted as he quickly made a vertical guard with his sword before Clint's next horizontal swing could chop him in half. He was successful in protecting himself, but was pushed aside and out of Clint's way.

The Hunting Blade boss then tried to swing his sword back around at Belius with a yell, but the Entelexeia caught the blade in her hand. "It seems these men will not be stayed lest I take arms against them." She looked over Clint's head (he was big, but she was still much _bigger_) to look at Yuri and the others, "It is asking much of you, but please, help Natz."

"What about you?" Yuri was still standing over Tison, who was (presumably) glaring up at him with a bloody nose, with his sword under the surfer accent man's chin. Estelle, meanwhile, had moved to Judith's side and was just finishing healing the krityan's damaged ribs. Karol just looked overall bewildered, Rita had whipped out her scroll but chose to watch the situation before casting anything (we _did_ have the guys outnumbered), and Raven didn't seem overly bothered.

Belius made a contemptuous noise as she looked at the sword in her hand, hardly strained by holding it back, "I am not to be outdone by mere humans."

"Gotcha," Yuri grinned, katana leaving Tison's neck and resting on our vigilante's shoulder instead. He glanced at Karol, who was too wrapped up in anguish over Nan and his former guild to take charge of Brave Vesperia, so Yuri took the job. "Let's get outta here!"

Repede, Raven and Rita immediately made for the door, ready to go where they could do some good instead of hanging on the sidelines on the off chance they'd get an opening. Estelle hesitated, sharing a look of reluctance with Judith, but the krityan shook her head and they both ran after the swordsman. Karol followed obediently but dragging his feet in a very hangdog way, which made sense since he probably didn't want to have to fight with Nan.

I ran about halfway across the room before spinning on the ball of my foot and slashing Gemini Right through the air. "Bend! Water Whip!" Yes, I am familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was one of the factors that inspired me to try experimenting with this.

Without the threat of Yuri's sword, Tison was back on his feet and had been rushing at Belius again to help his boss gain the upper hand. But my new arte gathered a quantity of water element aer, building it up around the base of my dagger's blade and weaving into a long and flexible shape that snapped out at the Hunting Blade. Tison saw the incoming attack from his peripheral (somehow...despite that hood) and jumped back just in time to dodge. The tip of my watery whip flicked through the air just inches from his chest.

"I thought I told you to leave me," Belius said. She'd thrown Clint back with ease much like how the Hunting Blade Boss had knocked away Chase. But the big man tirelessly charged at her again, only to have Chase and his claymore get in the way once more.

"You think you can take me on? I won't hold back on you, ally of monsters!" Tison spat at me.

I ignored his taunt. It took a lot of concentration to keep the water from falling apart after that initial strike. "Yeah, Belius, and I told you I'm not gonna let you die."

Chase laughed, "Looks like you're stuck with us bodyguards. Pleasure working with you, Duce!"

Water whip worked mainly thanks to something I remembered from chemistry lessons about how strong hydrogen bonds were and water molecules' natural tendency to try and stick together. All I was really fighting against was gravity and physics trying to force the water down to puddle on the ground. But I'd discovered a temporary way around those problems with aer while fooling around earlier (the walk from the Weasand to Nordoplica was a long one).

I coaxed the aer I'd woven into the whip to keep moving, making the water undulate and flow through the air as I drew it back and then snapped it forward again with circular motions from my arm and wrist. Tison jumped to the side as my whip snapped down from above and slapped the ground he'd just been standing on. He grinned viciously, "Have it your way!" and darted towards me before I could bring the whip in to ready another strike.

Or so he must have thought. I snapped my wrist from side to side, creating a waving sine curve with the whip that snaked out in front of his feet and tripped him up.

Or so _I_ thought. Bastard tripped, but caught himself on one hand before crashing to the ground and turned the fall into more of a flip forward.

"Show off," I muttered before falling back to avoid the palm trying to smash into my face (I got a very good look at lizard skin gloves and his purple nails. Purple nails, Tison? Seriously?). Tison laughed harshly while unleashing a flurry of punches that made me lose control of my whip when I threw up my arms to guard my face and chest. He was _fast_, moving in flashes that I couldn't react to quick enough to counter with my rudimentary aikido. Stumbling back, I tried to stay calm, out of his reach, and watch his movements for an opening.

He kicked out, sweeping my feet from under me with a spinning lash from his leg, so that I fell hard to the floor and grunted at the whoosh of air leaving me. Dazed, I thought for a moment that I could hear someone: _I think your way is better, because what I learned to do next would be to follow up with a hit while they're still down. And then I'd go right into.._.

-The kick from my feet. I scissored my legs up through the air and back down, building the momentum that would roll me back onto my feet with little effort. And, as it would happen, kicked my foot into Tison's jaw so that he staggered back. I took the brief pause to shake my head clear as Surfer Accent Man checked that his jaw still worked and glared hatefully at me. "That's why you don't kick a man when he's down," I said, "He'll kick you first."

While we were taking our breather, I dared to sneak a peek at how the other three were doing at the other end of the room. From the looks of it, Chase was doing a pretty good job at keeping himself between the two larger (and muuuch larger) fighters. It effectively kept Belius from getting much involved, and thereby prevented her from getting any serious injuries.

I didn't for a minute think that the Duce couldn't handle herself, quite the contrary, but the main issue to be avoided was her getting wounded to the point where Estelle might try to heal her. I imagined that point was reached (in the game, behind the scenes) by Clint and his frontal attacks taking the brunt of Belius' own attacks, while Tison made hit and run tactical strikes to weaken her gradually.

Not that we'd let that work now.

"Raaah!" I snapped my attention back to Tison just as he used a burst of aer to boost his already annoying agility and close the gap between us, slamming into me hard. Before I could recover my wits his foot slammed into me beneath my ribs, lifting me off the ground and upwards into the air. I gasped as the air was forced out of me a second time, both Gemini slipping from my weakened grip to clatter against stone somewhere. The foot slammed into me again, sending me up higher.

_Shit! _I mentally cursed,_ I don't like my feet being off the ground! I can't fight!_ I caught a glimpse of a fist aiming for me. The sense of danger and my desperation to be grounded and stable again made me react instinctively, flailing my arms out and snarling like a cornered animal. Tison landed his punch, but my hands latched onto his arm and shoulder in a vice grip and pulled.

"What the-? Let go!" The Hunting Blade was pulled forward off his center of balance by my unexpected move and the sudden addition of my weight. Sheer stubborn will made him react fast enough to try countering by throwing his weight and balance backwards so I wouldn't knock him over, but then I was coming down with gravity on my side. And, still all desperate to not be airborne anymore, I basically clung to him like a baby possum to its mother.

The resultant confused tangle of limbs took a moment of sorting, not made any easier by the fact that he was trying to punch me, I was clawing at his face and white hair (have we got another albino here? Couldn't see his eyes) like a cat trying to get out of a full bathtub, and both of us were cursing at each other. When a bit of sense finally returned to me, I stopped the pansy clawing (I'm sure it hurt, but the hood kept me from getting at his eyes so at most I was a nuisance) and tried to get a few actual punches to his face in. It hurt. _Me_. But at least I knew enough so that I didn't break my own hand on his face, and he groaned painfully as I got him in the nose. Where Yuri had punched him earlier and there was some blood dried on his upper lip still.

With him preoccupied with how much _that_ sucked, I finally disentangled myself and stood back up jerkily. My body did not want to cooperate as it ached and throbbed everywhere he'd managed to kick or punch me. I had to breathe shallowly to minimize the pain. _God, I'm probably a patchwork of bruises now._

Fumbling at my belts I found Oberon's hilt and drew it, the metal rasping as it left the sheath. Tison was already trying to scramble back up so I sent a Star Stroke at him to buy a little more time.

_What do we do? I can't chase them away if I don't attack more seriously, like, aim to kill serious. But even then they're too stubborn to stop even if I half killed them. But either way, I don't want to go that far!_ A quick glance at a battered and bloody Clint showed me that while neither Chase or Belius were pulling their punches (hell, I caught a flash of light and a zapping noise a few times from that direction that hinted at _lightning_ moves!), they weren't trying to kill the guy either. _They can't, it would cause an incident between the guilds._ And Chase didn't look much better off than Clint, despite having a partner to tag team with, because Clint had no qualms about killing the monster or the monster's allies.

Tison tried that move that gave him a burst of speed again, but it backfired when I cut Burning Afterimage in front of me and he ran into the fiery aftertrail. He snarled while trying to beat small flames out of his green and brown overcoat and I tried to think of an effective move that wouldn't be too dangerous.

A woman's voice, throaty and cold, came from the direction of the door made me whip around with Oberon raised defensively. "Struggling with these children? I was expecting better from you and yours, Clint." Stepping in through the door...was a hunched over old lady wrapped in a tattered brown shawl and carrying a basket of flowers that hung from her elbow.

_Huh?_ I tried to look past the crone to see if there was someone else behind her, but no. _It couldn't have been _her_ voice, could it? That was the voice of a younger woman!_ But even as I watched the bent old woman straightened and disdainfully plucked the shawl from her shoulders, letting it drop from her fingers. Her wrinkles smoothed, hair darkened and thickened from wisps of white to the green of budding leaves, and the simple homespun clothes turned into a short jacket with mandarin collar and billowing sleeves, leggings, and a sash-skirt-cape thingy that looked like it had been adapted from a ballroom gown the way it trailed behind her. All in shades of green. And her appearance had transformed so completely in the seconds it took the old shawl to pile in a small heap on the floor.

"One meeting with a being from another world in my entire lifetime," Belius intoned seriously as she studied the new woman, "and now three within the span of a day."

_...I'm in trouble, aren't I?_

Clint seemed to recognize the woman, and growled as he struggled to stand up tall and proud, "You said you wanted...to join this hunt to rid the world of the evil... But I don't see you being any great help..."

"Verte!" Chase exclaimed angrily. _Verte? The one he called a bitch before?_ "What the hell are you doing?"

"Why, but I am. Helping, that is," Verte's expression didn't change at all as she ignored Chase and answered Clint. It remained cool and detached from the fighting her entrance had interrupted. Lifting a single rose from her basket, she held it in front of her, turning it this way and that as she spoke. "I'm ensuring that the show does go on, and that the actors will receive their proper cues." Verte closed her hand around the blossom, crushing the red petals and thorns in her fist.

"Verte!" Chase shouted again, "Don't-"

I gasped when I felt a surge of...of _something_ in the air. It wasn't the feeling of aer, it didn't bring the painful pressure of aer sickness and it was too wild for me to hope to gather it like Rita had shown me. I realized, though, that I'd drawn my left hand in close to my chest in a protective manner.

The surge concentrated on the green woman's hand, focusing there for a moment before it suddenly burst out again. It had gained a tangible shape in the form of thorn covered vines wrapping around each other and speeding straight for Belius. The Entelexeia had barely the time to lift her hands before her before she was impaled through the stomach. "Urgh!"

"No!" I shrieked, lunging forward and chopping down on the vines with Oberon clutched in both hands. The vines began to steam and smoke where the dao bit into them, but I failed to cut all the way through. With a lurch the spear like vegetation surged forward again, ripping the dao from my grip and sending Belius crashing through the window, grille and all, to fall into the arena below.

"What the hell are you doing?" Chase raged at the woman, grabbing the collar of her jacket and getting blood smeared on it.

Verte looked up at him, unfazed. "More than Bianca and her sycophant Alastor have done, and that being the steps to ensure this world follows its plotted course smoothly." She opened her clenched hand, crushed petals and smoking vines falling to the stone ground where they smoldered unnoticed.

"You..._you!_" I seethed, scooping up Oberon, "How the hell can you justify _killing_ her that way?" I was stalking towards them with the intent to harm on full blast. Chase held up an arm that blocked me before I got within reach of her, but his fist on her collar had tightened further and looked to be ready to smash her against a wall.

Verte had dismissed him, though, and had turned her neutral expression on me. "Ah, and here we have the pawn Nevys has been playing with." A hint of a not so pleasant smile crossed her face, "I hope you're giving the lying thief hell." And then, with absolutely no warning beforehand, she disappeared and Chase was holding nothing.

"'Lying thief'?" I repeated, "What did she mean?" He swore in a low voice and stooped over to pick up his claymore from the ground, slinging it over his back. "Chase? _What did she mean?_"

When Chase turned back to me his expression was grim. "I swear, Letha, I want to tell you, but it will only make things worse right now. And first," he grabbed me around the shoulders with one arm and swept my legs up under the knees with the other as I squawked a protest, "we've got to get to Belius fast. I think she's still alive, but not much longer."

"Estelle," I gasped, remembering that in the game an injured Belius fell into the arena after the gang finished fighting the Hunting Blades in there. And then Estelle, being the way she was, tried to... "Tell me you have a plan C."

"Making it up as I go," he turned to face the broken window-

"Oh no, please, you're _not_ really-"

-and took a flying leap outside.

"SHHHHIIIIIIIIIII-"

I clutched at Chase as he landed on the roof of some outcropping of the coliseum, a covered front row seat or something, and barely before I felt the jolt of our landing he leaped again to the bleachers where the majority of the viewers enjoyed the fights, up onto the low railing that kept that audience from falling in, and then one final jump down to the sandy pit of the arena proper. He landed, knees bending and legs flexing to absorb the shock. For a moment we stayed like that, me frozen in shock and him...

"Ow..." his teeth were clenched tight.

"How are your legs not broken?" was all I could think to ask.

"I cheated." He let go of my legs and I let go of his neck (I probably nearly strangled him, which I do not regret) so I could stand. It was a miracle I hadn't cut one of us with my dao on the way down. Chase fell back heavily so that he was sitting on the ground. "Shoot, I don't think I can manage anything else for awhile." He looked up at me through his sandy bangs. "Sorry, I'm not much help. Go save Belius."

I nodded, "We're going to talk more later." It was a promise and a threat. He sighed and waved me off. Turning away, I scanned the arena and quickly located the injured Duce not too far away. She was sprawled across the ground, blood seeping into the sand, but trying to push herself back up onto her four legs. And further off I could see the others gathered around Natz, a sizeable group of Hunting Blades and Palestralle members alike strewn around the ground in various states of injury and unconsciousness. Natz had, of course, seen his Duce's less than graceful entrance and was leading the rush to her side.

With everything I had, ignoring the aches and the protesting of my ribs and lungs, I sprinted all out for Belius to get to her first.

"Child of the Earth," she greeted me with a soft voice when I stumbled to a stop next to her. I fell to my knees, I couldn't help myself. "Still trying to protect me? I have had worse than this, I assure you, and lived."

"Not what..." I panted, "...was supposed...to kill you."

"And the others from your Earth? Were they in your predictions?" I shook my head, trying to spare my own breath. She opened her mouth to add something more, but then looked up sharply. "You would yet challenge me, humans?" she bellowed. I spared one look over my shoulder to see that Clint and Tison had showed up again, having apparently found their own shortcut and probably rushed down the moment she'd gone through that window.

"...Your kind..." Clint forced out despite his own sorry state, "is the root...of all evil..." The Boss of the Hunting Blades lifted his sword again, ready for yet another round.

Yuri and the others had reached us by then, and I immediately placed myself between them and the Duce. "The root of evil? Belius?" Yuri was shaking his head in disbelief at Clint, not noticing anything wrong about my actions. "You've got it all wrong. Just...look!" the swordsman waved a hand at the injured Entelexeia, and the group of humans that had been willing to give their all and even die for her. Profound, but lost on the Hunting Blades.

"All monsters serve evil...!" the bigger man insisted, "They must be hunted down... It...it is up to us...to the Hunting Blades...!" During his speech the point of his sword sagged closer and closer to the ground, though at his reaffirmation of his Guild's Purpose he hoisted it up high again. For one proud moment before he fell over on his face.

Tison reached out towards the fallen Clint, but then clenched his hands into fists and threw his head back. "You...you monsters are all alike...!" he screamed up to the night sky and the barrier. Snapping his head back down to fix his intent stare hatefully on Belius, he charged forward again.

"Blow wind, blow!" I shouted, snatching wind elemental aer to me and weaving it into the formula needed as the gathered aer whipped my hair into a frenzy around my shoulders. "WIND BLADE!" The resulting gust of wind shot towards Tison in a crescent shaped arc, capable as any blade of cutting my enemy. And when Tison guarded that, taking a cut across his muscled forearms, he discovered Judith and her halberd had closed in for close combat.

The ground trembled, and I spun to find Belius had one hand pressing against her deeply wounded side (the vines apparently hadn't hit as dead on as I'd thought) and the other on the ground in a failing attempt to keep her up.

"Duce!" Natz cried in concern. And Estelle was hurrying towards Belius. I was standing between the two.

_I will not allow Belius to die._

Light from the barrier gleamed along Oberon's blade as it raised up slowly before me. I held it, like I'd learned in fencing so long ago, so that the point was on level with my opponent's eyes.

Estelle's shocked eyes met mine.

x x x

*Sylph, watching playthrough videos while writing the chapter: "Okay, Clint and Tison rush Belius...beatdown on Tison by Yuri...wait." Backs the video up three seconds. "...Seriously, Judith? You just stood there as Clint runs _right at you_ and smacks you across the room? It doesn't even look like he hit you! You just randomly fly off to the side!" Watches scene again. And again. "Heheheheh, kinda funny to watch..."*

This chapter Letha gains the title... Non Frequent Flyer: You just prefer your feet on the ground, thank you very much. Enemies that knock her into the air better be prepared to take damage from her panicked reaction.

I think, gamewise, Clint and Tison got knocked down into the arena with Belius. It looked like they were getting up again after a nasty fall. Buuuuut...I don't think that's something you could survive, at least not without nasty injuries (Chase doesn't count, nyeh), and Verte's little trick didn't give them a fast way down either. So they found a secret passageway or something.


	53. Chapter 53: What Has Changed

__So the events of last chapter and this chapter are, truly and honestly, the reason I had the random month long break. There were just so many possibilities I had to sort through to figure out which ones would get the results I wanted. This chapter, for example, I had three different ideas for what I could do with Belius, two different ideas for how I'd manage Chase, two different ideas for what to do with Letha's shifting position in this world, and something I wasn't sure if I'd do now or a bit later. And, I assure you, all these ideas were evil and twisted.

...REALLY GLAD YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW WHERE I LIVE.

Yeah, still have the urge to run away and hide anyway.

Angelic:

We all use cliffhangers because the good stuff always demands a chapter break in order to leave the biggest impact possible. And it's funny. Like throwing fakes/mimics at an unsuspecting person.

Yup. Then it would be Vert. A less obvious name to go for would have been Midori, but why not bludgeon everyone who has basic knowledge of French over the head with it? At least I didn't name her Grune!

Powerless bystander:

Woot! Awesomesauce _and_ swag! What fanfic writing ghostly air elemental could possibly want more?

Chase's appearance was such a delight to put in because he was both random and yet natural to the scene to me (I see a trope reference in your review!), and deserves the title "Child of the Earth" just as much as Letha does. And all the other twists and almost reveals I'm teasing you guys with! So shameless of me!

Verte is the new Nevi! Nevi does not like people trying to steal his spotlight! This. Means. WAR. ;) Or something like that. Someday the fairies will make sense.

x x x

Chapter 53: What Has Changed

x x x

"Estelle!"

"Uwaah!"

"What's goin' on?"

Shocked and angry voices were all yelling at once, exclaiming in confusion. I shut them out, intent on Estelle and only Estelle.

"Le-Letha?" the princess breathed, wavering, uncertain...betrayed. Blue-green eyes fell from mine to stare unbelieving at the point of the sword threatening her. Then a katana flashed before me, sweeping Oberon from my grip to tumble through the air and land uselessly far from my reach. My hand stung.

Yuri grabbed Estelle by the upper arm and pulled her back behind him, glaring at me with accusing eyes. "What the hell are you thinking?" he demanded. "Lying is one thing, but this is-"

"Yuri, wait!" Estelle stopped the swordsman's harangue while watching me with those wide eyes. Seeing the hurt in them made guilt stab through my gut. It was almost a good thing that my exhaustion was catching up with me, making my vision a bit fuzzy. Breathing was getting harder too, the ache of a mild bout of aer sickness (_an unfortunate side effect of the Water Whip? It required more aer the longer I used it..._) settling in with the assortment of injuries I'd picked up against Tison.

_Dammit... What am I doing? Yuri could bitch slap me around the Coliseum with one hand behind his back right now. And that's if I even _wanted_ to hurt them. I don't!_

"Letha," the princess stepped forward again. I jerked my body into a half-hearted aikido homni, hands feeling heavy as they hovered in midair. "Please! I have to help her!"

"Please," I begged in return, "Don't make me do this. Just...please believe me, don't do it..." _She's almost in my range, but I swear, if I'm forced to hurt her in anyway I'll...I'll..._

She took another step forward, and I tensed involuntarily. "Are you...crying?"

Surprised, I touched the fingers of my left hand to my face, "I'm not..." But on the edge of my eyes I felt dampness. Pulling my hand away, I stared at my damp finger tips. And then at the fingerless glove I wore to cover the fairy's mark. A startling hatred for the gloves I wore welled up inside me so that I wanted to rip them off and set fire to them.

"Judy!" Yuri exclaimed, breaking my thoughts away from my sudden loathing for a few scraps of leather.

Not alarmed, I didn't look to see who it was when I sensed the presence of a person joining me in my stand. "So you already knew," Judith's voice was soft but clear at my side.

"Same to you," I responded unnecessarily. It was a simple confirmation of a secretly shared confidence. Now I looked over at her, standing with her halberd held in front of her. In front of us. Not threatening, but steadfast and protective. "And about me too, right?"

Her serene smile was answer enough before she even said, "Oh, so I was found out?"

"What are you two going on about?" Rita snapped.

Yuri looked highly ticked at us both, "Are you two going to explain yourselves, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?" I stared solemnly back at him, feeling as if a shroud had settled around me that set everything at a distance. I was tired, physically and emotionally, and all I could feel was resignation.

"If Estelle tries to heal Belius right now, she'll only kill her," I said flatly. Curiously, it was with detachment that I watched Estelle's eyes widen again in horror, watched her white gloved hands cover her mouth and her gasp, watched them clasp around each other as if in desperate prayer. Callously, I continued, "Poison and medicine go hand in hand, two sides of one whole. What can save one life will steal another."

"Poison...?" Estelle whispered, voice breaking. And _then_ the emotions that had been strangely absent crashed down on me in a rush. _How could I have said that to her? That is the singularly _worst_ thing I could possibly say!_

But it couldn't be unsaid. There was no reset button, no last save point one could go back to in order to pick the other option, the other response, the other path.

Life is a bitch.

Since I couldn't take it back, and any attempt to soften my words would sound like empty excuses, I turned instead to Belius. _She_ looked terrible with that hole in her humanoid torso, but with gritted teeth and half shut eyes was bearing with it. The fact that she was trying to push herself upright again made me feel like a wimp to be complaining, even if only to myself, about my comparatively minor grievances.

Anxious, I begged her, "Oh! Don't move yet, you'll make it worse!" I frantically tried to assess how bad the damage really was. With the Entelexeia's physical make up was there even anything vital in the upper body? Or were the organs divided between the upper torso and lower centaurian body? Where were things like the kidneys located? Or her heart? Hell, she could have _two_ hearts for all I knew!

"Please, Estelle," Judith pleaded from behind me, "You're not a poison, but you have to understand!"

"You both knew?" Yuri said slowly. It felt like my heart had dropped into my stomach and dragged it down somewhere around my feet. I tried to ignore that while ransacking the pockets of my vest and pants to dig up all the gels I had left. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"...It wasn't my place to say," Judith said regretfully. "Even if it was, I simply don't have all the answers Estelle needs."

I almost didn't answer at all. But as I tried to urge a few apple gels on Belius, her eyes opened and I felt caught in their deep pools once again. There was a haze of pain over those pools, but they still filled me with awe at the age and wisdom they held. "Child..." her voice had a gurgling _wetness_ to it, which I knew enough to recognize as a _really bad sign_. I nodded, a barely perceptible motion. Satisfied, her eyes closed partway again as the Duce carefully picked the gels from my hands with her teeth and swallowed them.

"Estelle," I called back, trying to keep my voice gentle and unaccusing. It wouldn't make up for before, but it was something. "Would you come here?"

"But I..."

"First you're keeping Estelle away, now you want her to come?" Rita broke in. "What gives _you_ the right to decide?"

Belius had taken the last of my gels and looked better (as in, not about to kick the bucket), so with a deep breath to steel my nerves I faced everyone again. Judith looked less battle ready, halberd vertically straight with the butt end braced against the ground, but she still served as a barrier between us and the others.

"I have no right," I admitted, "Only, I don't want her to make a mistake in her ignorance that will haunt her for life."

The next question/accusation was easily predicted, and sure enough it came from Raven. "If that's true, why didn' ya say somethin' 'bout it sooner?"

"I..." my nerve was failing me as my guilty feelings gave me another pang of conscience. "I'm sorry..."

There was the sound of something large and heavy shifting around, and I became aware that behind me Belius had struggled to her feet successfully. Although the labored panting betrayed the effort it took on her part. "Rarely are secrets...an easy burden...to share." Concerned, I was turning back to her again when I paused, frowning at a sound that was gradually getting louder. And closer.

_It sounds...like metal on metal? But not like a fight, too regular and...and rhythmic for that..._ I glanced around for Chase. He wasn't where I'd left him but near the edge of the arena. It looked like he had dragged Clint and Tison (Judith: one, Surfer Accent: zero) off to the side and was in a full blown argument with Nan. Near them and head hanging was a young man who I would stand to reason as being Harry, the Don's grandson. Obviously, they weren't the cause of the sound that was growing louder yet.

_It sounds familiar... Crap! It's-!_ That was the precise moment when Imperial Knights began streaming into the coliseum arena from every entrance. "Merde," I muttered, "This probably won't be pretty..." A small group made a beeline for Chase and the Hunting Blades, saying something to him just out of my range of hearing. Nothing good, judging by the way my fellow Earthling blanched. And Nan's voice rose in a sharp retort.

And more were coming towards us. Shock surged through me when I saw who was leading them. _But-! It's supposed to be Sodia!_ The orange haired lieutenant, a second glance revealed, was part of the group giving Chase a hard time.

"More humans trying to have their way with _my_ city..." Belius coughed. Then, mustering her reserves of energy, she reared up tall and bellowed, "Come! Face me if you dare!" It was such a roar that the words were barely distinguishable.

"Wait!" I tried to stop her. My efforts were in vain, she leaped and covered half the ground between us and the advancing knights in a single bound. The blond at the head of the knights halted them with a short command, and to my horror I could feel the aer on the edge of my senses moving towards him as he chanted. "O divine spear-"

"Flynn!" Yuri and Estelle both shouted, the princess adding, "Don't!" as she recognized the spell.

It didn't do any good. "-run my enemy through! Holy Lance!"

Spears of light fell from the sky, stabbing deep into the sandy pit and anything unfortunate enough to have been in their path. Including Belius, too weak to completely escape the spell's area of effect. No less than three of the lances struck through her. The Duce screamed her agony, and I could swear my heart stopped.

"No!" Judith was the first to run past me, on her heels was Natz, Estelle, Yuri and Repede. Karol, Rita and Raven brought up the rear in that order. I stayed rooted where I stood, one hand raised in a useless gesture. Of what? What could I have possibly done? _Something! There must have been something!_

"Lady Estellise, please stay back! It's dangerous!" Flynn cautioned fearfully as the princess and company approached. His shoulders were rising up and down as he breathed harder than normal, a sign of how the spell had strained his limits.

"Damn it, Flynn," Yuri seethed at the blond captain. He'd probably have punched his old friend if he'd been close enough. "This isn't some monster, she's the Duce of Palestralle!"

The confusion on Flynn's face... Judith and Estelle had both fallen on their knees next to Belius, the princess wringing her hands as for the first time she could _not_ use her unique gift to save someone before her. And Natz was very vocally crying out, "Duce! No!" in such a bereaved tone... Comprehension and horror were dawning on Flynn.

"I-I was told that a great monster was endangering the Princess! I never thought-!"

Yuri growled, "Yeah, well maybe you should have!"

As a whole, the group was a lot closer than they had been before. Muzzily I realized I'd been walking towards them, my footsteps listlessly slow. Belius had begun to radiate a bright light, as if she'd become the center of a new star. Beside her Estelle was openly crying, apologizing over and over. "I'm-I'm sorry...If only I could do something!"

Belius raised a weak hand to brush lightly at the weeping princess' cheek. "Worry...not... The fault is not yours...or even yours..." she looked over the heads of those mourning her to the shell shocked Flynn. "You believed you were doing...what was best. Never lose your kind natures...or your desires...to protect others..."

By that time I had rejoined the group, standing in the haphazard semicircle around the Duce's head where it lay limply on the sand. The sands had absorbed enough blood to appear black in the night, and the proud Entelexeia's warm orange fur was a rusting red and brown. Feeling sick from the sight, I looked instead at her vulpine face, her deep black eyes distant. I didn't think she could even see us anymore, but somehow she knew that I was there.

"Child of the Earth...I regret that I...was of no help to you..." Her voice gave out.

"What?" Karol's voice practically cracked.

"Letha is...?" Estelle whispered wonderingly.

And Rita caught that as well, but seemed more annoyed by this new mystery, "What the heck _is_ a Child of the Earth anyway?"

"Belius!" Judith begged, but with little hope, "Please hold on!"

A smacking sound from Yuri's position, suggesting he'd punched a fist into a hand or something similar. "Dammit!"

The babble of noise around me seemed trivial and unimportant. I just stood by Belius, bathed in the light of her death, feeling empty. _I_ should have been the one apologizing to her! _I_ failed to protect _her_ when I'd vowed to keep her alive! But I couldn't find the words to tell her how sorry I was.

Not in my own words. Needing some way to express my grief, I softly sang:

_"Lacrimosa dies illa  
Qua resurget ex favilla  
Judicandus homo reus  
Huic ergo parce, Deus:  
Pie Jesu Domine"_

It wasn't beautiful, I didn't have the breath for the longer notes or the strength of voice to keep it even and clear. But there was plenty of that sorrowful emotion that had so touched me when I first heard it.

Belius' light had become a blinding brilliance that prevented me from seeing anything else. Her voice, from somewhere inside the light, murmured Natz's name. And then that light compacted in on itself until it was simply gone. Or nearly gone, what remained was a shining blue crystal. It was beautiful. I wished I had never seen it.

Still feeling too...too _full_ of my emotions, I sang again. And, because I had indeed looked up the words and memorized one of the translations, I sang it in English.

_"Tearful will be that day  
on which he'll rise again from the ashes.  
The guilty man waits for judgement,  
so have mercy on him, O God;  
compassionate Lord Jesus."_

Noises and voices around me. None of them immediately registering in my numbed mind, the time between hearing and comprehension lagging. Wasn't Belius supposed to speak one more? Just once more, to request her apatheia be taken to Don Whitehorse?

Rita had exclaimed in shock, "It's...like from the ghost ship...?"

"An apatheia?" Karol realized.

There was no voice from the crystal. Unhappily, I bent over and picked it up. My breath hitched as I suppressed a hiss of startled reaction. The apatheia tingled and stung against my fingers, but once I grew used to the sensation it felt oddly warm in my hands. Sadly I turned and presented the crystal cradled in my arms. "Here..." I held it out to Estelle. "The cyano ciel. Take care of her."

"Oh..." she nearly sobbed as she accepted the crystal from me. Heedless of the blood and sand getting on her dress, she sank to her knees and held the apatheia close.

Raven sighed, "So this must've been what Harry meant."

"This..." Flynn wore an expression not unlike a lost child, an impression reinforced by him objecting, like a child bewailing an overlooked rule he had broken by accident, "But I was told...!"

"You made a mistake," Yuri told him gravely and the captain flinched. "What're you going to do about it?"

Flynn grimaced, "I..."

"Captain!" Sodia's shout from the sidelines (where Chase actually had a couple of knights hanging onto his arms, keeping him in place) snapped Flynn from his daze.

The blond shook his head and the set of his mouth firmed. "Lady Estellise, Yuri, hand over the stone," he commanded in a tone that was nearly barren of emotion.

"Are you kidding me?" Yuri said with disbelief. "Is _this_ what the Knights are after? Dammit, Flynn, open your eyes and see what's wrong with this picture!"

"I have my orders," Flynn responded resolutely.

"Hey," Raven muttered in a low voice so that Flynn hopefully wouldn't hear. "If none of ya feel like windin' up in chains, we should scram right about now."

Our swordsman, however, wasn't listening. He wasn't done with Flynn yet. "Maybe you're carrying out your 'duty,' but you can't just go around doing everything by force. Didn't you join the Knights to change things like that?"

"We should really be trying to leave right now..." I whispered. But Yuri wasn't listening, Rita was protesting that we hadn't done anything wrong (despite Raven and Judith agreeing that it would be best to get out now), and Estelle was hugging the apatheia to her chest while weeping silent tears with a helpless Karol hovering at her side. And the Ace kept peering back over his shoulder at where Nan was fuming at her knight guards.

My head sank down as I wrapped my arms around each other. _Hasn't anything changed? It's different, but it's the same!_

"How's this any different from what I've come to expect from the empire?" Yuri ruthlessly demanded. "Are you gonna follow Ragou and Cumore's examples?"

Dropping those names backfired. Unsurprisingly. Flynn's eyes grew a little colder, "If I did, would you just kill me as well?" Angrily, he pressed on, "Would you do away with me like you did Ragou and Cumore?"

"Huh?" Karol blinked and looked to Yuri in confusion. "...What does he..."

And our swordsman, in the heat of the moment, started to say, "If you go and become a villain-"

My brain snapped. My frayed and tattered nerves together with my overclocked emotions grabbed my common sense by the neck and chucked it out the window. It's the only way I can explain it. "Ragou and Cumore?" I laughed bitterly. "Should doublecheck the names on your list. Yuri didn't kill Cumore."

"What are you saying?" Estelle had been torn away from her grief over Belius' death, at least part way, by the horrible revelations.

I smirked at Yuri and Flynn, "What about another name, huh? Garista." Both men froze, staring at me with faces gone pale. It's possible Yuri was even more strongly affected, since as far as he knew I should never have had the opportunity to hear that name before. Hell, I tried not to even think about it if I could help it. Knowing the events of First Strike would do nothing but get me in trouble. The twisted smile slipped away from my face, "The two of you share that one, don't you?"

"Garista...? I know that name," Rita said slowly, "I thought I'd heard he died in a blastia explosion... An accident!" There was some shouting from the knights, Sodia barking commands.

"And while we're on the subject of names and duty," I was taking a perverse enjoyment from this, "what about one Nylen Fedrok, hmm?" Yuri's right hand gripped the blastia on his left wrist. Subconscious reaction, most likely. "He followed orders, and lost his family. You don't stop regretting that." Both men were paling as I mercilessly dug into their shared history. "Then he went and disobeyed Alexei's orders, and, well, _you_ should know as well as anyone how that turned out. But I'd dare say he had no regrets at the end."

"How do you..." dark eyes stared at me with uncertainty...and maybe fear. If Yuri Lowell could ever be afraid of someone, it might be me. Finally, it had finally been really hammered home that he didn't know who I was under the lies. And I knew more about him than I should.

Flynn swallowed and attempted to regain his composure. "...I never thought you'd tell anyone about that," his voice managed to stay level as he addressed that to Yuri. Most logical assumption for him to make. Meanwhile the knights were still in a uproar over something, not that I cared what.

"Idiot," I scoffed, though I didn't entirely mean it. But then again, I did. Dammit, Flynn was just on a streak of idiocy since setting up that blockade! "No one told me. No one _needed_ to tell me. I can think for myself! And how about you, aren't you bright enough to do that?" My hands spread apart, palms upturned, in a nearly subconscious questioning gesture, "Good God, man, did you forget? When Nylen sent you to ask for reinforcements in Shizontania? And Alexei just told you to wait!"

"Enough..." the blond muttered.

"Captain!" Sodia called urgently, trying to get his attention.

"Hell, Flynn, isn't it obvious which would be more important? Protecting a town or attending a ceremony? Shouldn't it be obvious that _orders aren't always right?_"

"Enough!" he shouted at me.

"And let me tell you something!" I went on recklessly, "Your Commandant Alexei is-"

Something brown blurred in my peripheral vision, and before I realized what was happening a hand was clamped across my mouth.

"Christ, Letha, and here I thought you were being stubborn about _not_ saying anything!" Chase's voice came lightly from somewhere next to my ear. I tried to squirm out of his grip, but another arm wrapped around me and partially pinned my arms down as he started pulling me back. "You guys really need to get out of here," he said more loudly, to Brave Vesperia as a whole. "Keep dragging your feet and there won't be a way out of town."

"R-right!" Karol shook off his astonishment. Somehow, Chase's appearance and calm warning was enough jolt to kick them into motion again. Yuri's jaw clenched as he reached over to Estelle, taking her by the arm to help her up onto her feet. And then Chase had me turned around towards the exit and started pushing me out ahead of him.

On a good day, I'd shake off Chase and feed him some dirt. But I'd been running on fumes and my second wind was wearing out. I let him half guide me, half shove me down the corridors.

"Why?" I sniffed, "I tried so hard. And you even came in with your plan As and Bs... So why hasn't anything changed?"

"Sorry..." the pressure of his hands against my back eased up a bit, and in that small space of time Yuri ran past us with Estelle in tow, holding her by the hand and wrist to keep her going. She was still clutching the apatheia to her. "Sometimes things...don't change the way you want them to. But at least now Estelle doesn't have someone's death on her hands."

_That's right. That's different. Estelle's power didn't cause Belius to die. She isn't responsible. _"But will she see it that way?" I wondered aloud.

x x x

_**Belius' Death**_

_Karol: Belius... How could something like this happen...?_

_Yuri: There was still so much we needed to ask..._

_Karol: ...Yeah. Think of all the knowledge that only an Entelexeia would have._

_Yuri: Not to mention her perspective as the Duce of Palestralle. Why couldn't we have met her sooner...?_

_Karol: Yuri..._

_**Can't Put it Off**_

_Yuri: You two care to explain what all that was about earlier? You sure know a lot about us for people from another world._

_Letha: Damn...I really went and blabbed all over the place..._

_Chase: I'll say. I didn't think you had it in you._

_Letha: ..._

_Chase: Yeah, now isn't a good time for this. We'll talk about it on that ship of yours._

_Yuri: Damned right we'll talk. Don't think I'll forget about it._

x x x

There were knights posted all around the hallways of the coliseum. With the element of surprise on their side, they were successfully rounding up all the Palestralle members and restricting the movements of ordinary citizens. The citizens were anything ranging from frightened and meek to pissed off and rebellious. Guild members were just pissed off and rebellious. But the knights allowed no opportunity for them to organize a resistance. And with the news of Belius' passing already filtering through the city the resulting shock and grief of her people sowed confusion.

"Damn, they've blocked up this hall too," Yuri cursed. We'd stopped running almost immediately once we'd outdistanced Flynn's shouting and Sodia trying to run us down (and holy crap, how persistent she is when Flynn never gives her an order to stop!). Rushing headlong down the halls would have guaranteed the attention of all the knights on us, so for the time being we were trying to sneak through the halls unnoticed.

_Cl-clang!_

_Crash!_

I winced at the noise as Yuri and Judith signaled the all clear and made a mental ammendment to that thought. _Unnoticed, and ambushing smaller knots of unsuspecting knights that won't be missed right away_. Well, what good was being unnoticed if we didn't get through fast enough to escape the city?

"The route to the harbor seems to be the least guarded," Judith observed as she detached the two halves of her halberd and hooked them across her back, "At this point the Fiertia may be our best option."

Karol wasn't entirely confident with our hasty escape plan. "What'll we do if they've blocked the harbor off?"

"Not like we can go back to the Weasand of Cados at this point, so what else?" Rita flicked a finger so an ember of fire shot out, "Our best bet is to break through out of the harbor!"

The swordsman nodded, "Exactly," and gave the whole group an assessing once over. Perhaps I was looking for ill omens that weren't there, but he seemed to avoid looking directly at me where I stood slightly apart from the others. Most of the others. Judith didn't mind standing by me. Chase, on the other hand, I'd made a point of putting distance between us. "Once we're out of here we can talk about what to do next. And we're definitely gonna need to talk," a few furtive glances towards Judith and me from Karol and Estelle, and openly hostile glare on Rita's part.

The aggressiveness dissolved as the mage blinked and looked around again. "Hey, where's the old man...?"

Yuri just shrugged it off, "If it's him, he'll turn up soon enough."

Judith smiled and added, "He's the sort of guy who shows up as soon as you start to feel relieved he's gone," to lighten the mood.

Maybe it worked a little. Rita rolled her eyes and Chase made a sound suspiciously like an amused snort. I just closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall I'd put my back to. It felt good to rest there, if even for just a moment or two...

"Letha?" I peeled my eyes open and found the princess standing before me. She still had the cyano ciel in a protective, almost motherly hold. Seeing me watching her wordlessly, Estelle reached out with one hand while the other continued to cradle the apatheia, "You're hurt..." But she stopped and pulled her hand back abruptly as if she'd been shocked, looking down and away uncertainly. "I'm-I'm sorry, I forgot..."

I frowned at the timid expression on her face. Pushing off from the wall so that I was standing properly, I reached up with both arms and clapped my hands to either side of her head. She squeaked in surprise (such a funny sound that normally I would have had to fight not to laugh at) and then I knocked my forehead against hers. Not hard, oh no, it was more of a light bump than a headbutt. We were the same height, so doing this brought us eye to eye and blocked everything else from her field of view.

"Listen to me now," I held her eyes with my brown ones, staring straight into them. "I may have been going on about medicine and poison before, but that hardly means I think you're dangerous. Hell, you're a top candidate for 'least threatening person I know'. You simply have an ability, a tool, that's rarer than most. What I've been _trying_ to say is that you need to take responsibility for the tools you have at your disposal and learn when and how it's best to use them."

"But-before-" she stammered, "With your sword-!"

I had to roll my eyes at myself at that, "Yeah, that was pretty drastic of me. I'm sorry for scaring you like that, but I was kind of at the end of my rope." Still was, for that matter. I would kill for a chance to crawl into a bed and not get up again for three days.

"Oh!" One of her hands raised up and patted the side of my own face in turn-

"Huh?" I articulated intelligently.

-which was followed by the flash of light and ringing sound that came when she used her healing artes. An immediate wash of relief flooded me as all the aches and bruises from fighting Tison up and vanished. I was still tired, from the drama as much as the physical exertions, and the aer sickness was still a nagging presence lodged somewhere in my chest, but those were bearable complaints without the persistent pain of injuries. I stared at Estelle with a dumbfounded expression as a tentative smile appeared on the princess' face. "Healing you is still fine, right?"

I stared at her for a good while before I even realized that my mouth was hanging open slightly. Then, with a choked laugh, I wrapped my arms around her in a hug (made somewhat awkward by the apatheia between us). "Aww, Estelle, don't ever change!" _Er..._ "Wait, that contradicts what I was just saying, doesn't it..." Hesitantly, her slender arms hugged me back.

From over her shoulder I could see that the others were watching our exchange. I bit the inside of my lower lip, and decided to try to break the ice forming between us. "What? Haven't you guys seen two girls hugging before?" Chase grinned broadly from his spot near the back.

Yuri tilted his head away carelessly, "Just be glad the old man isn't here to ruin the moment. He'd probably ask to join you two." I had to snicker as I let Estelle go. _I can imagine that._

Rita made a face at the thought. Then she pinned me with another hostile look, though this one was a bit less threatening and more calculating. "That reminds me," _How?_ "Why did Belius call you a 'Child of the Earth'?"

Chase raised a hand, "I'm one too."

"Ehh? Really?" Karol gawked at him as if the Earthling had sprouted wings or an extra head.

He shrugged, "Yeah, though Belius wouldn't have known that."

"She did," I corrected. That startled him.

"Really? How-or wait, did you-"

"But anyway," I interrupted, "we've stayed here long enough. We can get the talking out of the way once we're safe on the Fiertia."

The mage crossed her arms and pulled a peevish expression, "And just who's been holding us up?" I think my eye may have started to twitch._ Well, sorry! You didn't seem in much of a hurry just now!_

"Let's get moving then," the swordsman took the lead again, Judith and Repede joining him at the front of the group.

x x x

_**Still Not How It Works**_

_*Karol and Rita staring intently at Chase and Letha*_

_Chase: Wh-what? You're starting to creep me out._

_Karol: You're really a 'Child of the Earth'?_

_Chase: Last I checked, yeah._

_Rita: If the Children of the Earth have anything in common with the Children of the Full Moon, wouldn't they have unique abilities of their own? Hmmm..._

_*Letha backs away slowly*_

_Rita: Ha! *Punches Chase*_

_Chase: OW! What the hell was that for?_

_Letha: Rita, if the permeability thing doesn't work when you surprise attack me, it's not gonna work on Chase either._

x x x

We were so close to the docks, just round another bend and we'd be homefree. Of course, that was when we heard a familiar woman's voice shout out behind us, "Yuri Lowell, this is the end of the line!"

"Tenacious, that Salt woman is," I grumbled.

Chase raised an eyebrow at me as the group collectively stopped to look back (we could have kept going, but reacting when someone calls your name is a conditioned response, you know?). "Salt?" he asked in an undertone.

Sodia and a trio of knights had nearly caught up to us, and a weird little kid was at the lieutenant's side. It was a boy who looked practically lost under the folds of a white robe, staff, and packed full bag that looked about to burst. _Who? Oh, right. Witcher, the mage Flynn picked up in Aspio._

"Really Chase?" I mumbled back, "Sodia? Sodium Chloride? Salt?" He continued looking at me with a blank expression and I sighed, "You slept through chemistry classes, didn't you?"

"Hey, my teacher had the worst droning voice-"

"Lady Estellise," Witcher tried to sound commanding , but came it came off more like a childish whine than he probably realized, "you must return with us. Captain Flynn is worried about you."

"...But I, I..." Estelle looked down at the apatheia she still carried. Even when Karol had offered to keep it in his bag she'd politely turned him down. I wondered if it might be because I'd told her to take care of the crystal.

"Estelle's not going back with you!" Rita underscored her words with a fireball she flung at the pursuing knights. Witcher proved to be an advocate of the "fight fire with fire" philosophy as he grabbed his mage's staff and shot another fireball back. His was smaller but at least as accurate, striking Rita's spell dead center. And his might have been a touch faster than our mage's, since despite getting his casting off after she did they met in the center of the space between our groups.

The spells collided in the air, resulting in a burst of flaring light and heat with a percussive bang.

"Let's hurry!" No one needed any more encouragement, seizing on the distraction to cover our last sprint for the boat. Or so I thought, but a glance back to see if they'd caught on yet showed me that Chase hadn't moved yet.

"Chase!" He only waved at me to keep going. I couldn't help but watch, though, as he made a fist in the air. Sparks and small arcs of electricity were starting to dance on the back of his hand. Quickly, he dropped to one knee and pounded his fist against the ground.

"Bolt Cage!" All the electricity that had been charging up in his hand spread out in front of him in a latticework that hung just an inch over the ground. Roughly six, maybe seven feet in diameter, it was just enough to block off the street behind us. Chase spun on his heel and sprinted off after the others, me belatedly falling into step beside him.

"What in the world was _that?_" I couldn't help but ask.

"Er," he looked a bit embarrassed, "Could you do me a favor and not tell Al I did that? He made me promise not to use it anymore."

I shot him a sour look, "If I ever have a chance to talk with Alastor, tattling on you would probably be the last thing on my list of things to bitch about."

"Ah ha ha, guess I should've known..."

We both jumped over the side of the _Fiertia_, landing on the deck of the ship. Yuri had already pulled out Tokunaga from wherever he'd been kicking back while waiting for us, and Rita was snapping off orders to Biggs and Wedge. "You men, raise the anchor!" They scrambled to prep the ship for a speedy departure.

"Yeah, men, raise the anchor," Raven dropped onto the deck at the other end of the ship, turning around and pointing down in a 'come here' gesture to someone standing on the dock. Harry gave him a scathing look, but obeyed and jumped onboard beside his grandfather's right hand man.

"Pretty quick to come back this time," I observed wryly.

"Raven!" Karol exclaimed, "Where did you come from?"

The archer nodded at the blond young guildsman standing in his shadow. "Don't s'pose it'd be too much trouble ta take one more with us."

Karol's brow creased for a second before his expression lightened with recognition, "Hey, that's the guy-!" Rita elbowed the Ace in the ribs hard as a cloud of gloom seemed to draw over Harry's features.

Tokunaga was fiddling around with the ship's controls and blastia, Rita butting her way into the work as a matter of course. They'd have it running soon, and I looked back to see how much time we had before Sodia and company joined us. Chase's little light show trap wouldn't work for long.

A flash of color drew my eyes. Standing as if untouched by the chaos around her was Verte, a center of calm just inside a partially shadowed alley. My hands tightened on the _Fiertia's_ railing, as if wishing they were around her fairy neck.

She looked in our direction, in _my_ direction, and with a disturbing certainty I knew our eyes met despite the distance. That her lips curved just so in a not-quite smile, and that her mouth was forming words I couldn't hear. But I could almost see the shapes of the syllables...

My hands were leveraging me up as I pulled first one foot, then the other up onto the railing.

I stood, balancing precariously as the ship rolled and swayed.

We were already drawing away from the docks.

No, I didn't want to leave...

I wanted to go back...

"What are you-Letha, stop!"

_Who is Letha...?_

I jumped into the water.

x x x

I'm sure you all hate me now. Or at least are very put out with me.

If you look up translations for Lacrimosa (which is probably more like "mournful" but "tearful" works too), you _will_ find a bunch of different results. But the overall meaning is pretty much the same for each one, and what we have here was what seemed easiest to both understand (grammatically) and fit to the music for "Lala's Lullaby" without forcing it.

First Strike references. Oh hell yeah, I went there. Anyone who hasn't managed to watch the movie yet and don't entirely get what that was about, I will be getting around to explaining the significance of those references sooner or later...probably later though...

In the game Witcher called Estelle "Lady Estelle" and that doesn't make sense to me. "Estelle" should be the name friends she makes along the journey call her, while anyone tied to the empire would more likely call her "Estellise" and try to handle her like a fragile glass sculpture that needs to be protected.


	54. Chapter 54: When Dreamers Wake Up

11/11/11

Yesterday was exactly one year since Fairy Tales and Brave Vesperia debuted. To commemorate this, I managed to crank this chapter out a bit early (despite getting blocked about a third of the way through). And in honor of this occasion?

EXPOSITION GALORE. Yeah, this chapter will probably feel slower than the previous ones. But I am _finally_ explaining some REALLY BIG THINGS.

DemonicAzure:

Somebody noticed! I don't know about anyone else, but I usually don't look at when a fic was first published, but at when it was most recently updated. So I didn't really think anyone would notice this milestone for FTaBV. And yes, Rita punching someone is always priceless~

Angelic:

Verte is definitely something. I love even my hateable characters, but jeez, Verte, you really are a piece of work.

Sooo...I suppose we have another cliffhanger here. Of sorts.

Christine:

Yep. I guess I can't deny it. We're definitely getting another cliffhanger. And here I promised myself I'd cut back on them for awhile... We're not getting to that particular scene just yet, but this may be the next best thing?

x x x

Chapter 54: When Dreamers Wake Up

x x x

_Heavy..._

_Water soaked through my clothes in an instant, seeping into my boots, weighing me down. Finding my way to the surface of the water to gasp for air was a struggle._

_Have to lose it..._

_Gulping down a last breath, I ducked my head back under water and curled down to reach for my boots. Fumbling in the dark water, unable to see, I clawed at the laces until I loosened them enough to yank the footwear off, doing away with my socks in the process. By then my lungs felt like they were about to burst, and I began to thrash and kick to try and swim back up to the air again._

_...Too far?_

_I wasn't breaking the surface, my chest felt like it was being squeezed painfully._

_...Too heavy? Lighter..._

_My fingers were starting to turn numb, but I managed to undo the zipper off my leather vest and wrestled out of it. Like the boots it sank down deeper into the harbor._

_I reached up, up, up and broke through into the cold air. A wave splashed into my face, blinding me and making me cough when I nearly swallowed some._

_No good...can't keep this up..._

_If I didn't reach land soon I'd be in trouble. That way... I kicked out behind me and started swimming towards the docks._

_Keep swimming...keep swimming...don't stop..._

_Finally my reaching hand banged against a pier. Together my questing hands found the edge and grasped at it weakly._

_Keep going..._

_My arms pulled, succeeding in lifting me part way out of the water. My bare feet braced themselves against the submerged wall, trying to push me upwards. Shoulder blades cleared the water, my wet turtleneck making the night chill ten times worse as it clung to me. I pulled again, but couldn't seem to get any further. If fact...the wet chill was going away, my shoulders slipping back into the water._

_No... I need to go..._

_My numbed fingers clawed, trying not to lose their grip. Then something hard and cold latched itself around my wrist, and with a heave helped me in my efforts to clamber onto solid ground._

_On my hands and knees, I stared as the water streamed off of me to puddle on the stone of the street. Then to thin dribbles like from a leaky faucet, and finally lazy drips falling from my stringy hair, chin, and nose._

_The cold and hard thing that had grabbed my wrist now had a hold of my shoulders, moving me so that I sat back on my heels and looked up._

_A knight..._

_A knight, a female knight, holding me with a gauntleted hand on each of my shoulders. Saying something, words that hardly reached me, as if they were being spoken under water._

_"...ight? ...fall off...?"_

_"Fall..."_ _I murmured, remembering the sensation of gravity pulling me down and down._

_"So you... ...rry, I'll help... ...warm..."_

_I stood, wobbling on my feet, and walked past the female knight. She wasn't the one..._

_"Hey!"_

_But I walked straight through a passing crowd, easily finding gaps between the people to slip through so that I was hardly slowed at all. The knight did not follow. Or could not._

_Does it matter?_

_I wandered down the street, somehow knowing which way I needed to go. I passed by doors and people alike, ignoring both, until I reached the mouth of an alley. Without hesitating I turned and walked into the darkened passage._

_Here..._

_At the far end, waiting, was a woman in green clothing. She was holding a flower, delicately spinning it by the stem between her thumb and index finger. Seeing me she stopped twirling the flower. _"Come."_ Her voice was clear, ringing in my head as if being said over and over. A recording set on an endless loop. Or, had it been playing in my head all along?_

_No...something else..._

_It felt like there was a name, someone's name, still whispering itself in my ears._

_Meekly I walked up and stopped before her. Somehow, although her expression did not change, I had the impression that she was smiling in satisfaction. Reaching up, she tucked the flower behind my left ear. _"Forget," _she commanded._

_The name in my ears shattered._

It felt like ice cold water had been thrown in my face, and I gasped at the shock. My body shuddered involuntarily and I hugged myself to try and recover some warmth. "Wh-wha-at th-the he-ell?" I hissed through chattering teeth. "Wh-at did yo-u _do_?"

Verte was watching me impassively, arms folded across her chest with the flower basket still hanging from the one elbow. Easily within reach for the other hand to pick out a flower. "It seems you were as receptive as I could have hoped, considering the unusual circumstances," she said, more to herself than in response to my question. "It's a shame the charm and command both needed to be erased, but the side effects in this case made its continued use more of a hindrance than a help."

"What are you babbling about?" I was managing to keep my teeth still and repress the shivers that had been wracking through me, but still sounded about as pathetic as I looked. My long hair was a tangled mess partially drawn across my face, I ran my fingers through it to at least get it out of my eyes and felt something stuck in it. I pulled it out.

"Huh?" In my hand was the spent and twisted shape of a daylily. They bloom in the morning, petals spreading wide at the top of long stalk like stems, and when the Sun sets they close and never open again. But, I knew, this particular lily would have had a warm tawny orange color while it bloomed.

Verte plucked it from my hand. "Hemerocallis fulva," she commented idly, "Short lived, edible, on your Earth originated in the Eastern countries, and is symbolic as a flower of forgetfulness. As the flower withers, one forgets what they wish not to remember." She popped the flower into her mouth, chewing it and swallowing, all the while watching me.

That was a mildly creepy thing to do.

"What did you do?" I asked again, "How did you make me leave the Fiertia?" Not that long beforehand I would have loved at this chance to smack the fairy around in payback for Belius, but this hardly seemed the best option for me. If nothing else, I ought to try and unearth some information first. Besides, I had apparently gone and forgotten my dao and my daggers so I wasn't particularly threatening to anyone anymore...

Verte dropped a seed to the ground. I was startled by this, taking a wary step back, but was still utterly surprised when the seed sprouted and grew as I watched into a small...shrubbery type of plant. It was more gnarled branches than anything, all bunched in one spot and bending back on themselves at odd angles. Which made a warped kind of sense when the green fairy sat on the coiling branches as if it was a regular chair.

"We weren't able to have a proper talk before, and I didn't want to miss this rare opportunity," she arranged the flower basket in her lap, giving it more attention than the conversation she was having with me. "There are certain matters I would like to discuss with you, so I merely called you back."

"Called me back? I _jumped_ off of a boat in a harbor full of knights trying to _catch us_ because you called me?" I couldn't believe it. Even _I_ wasn't that stupid, I could have been run over by a ship, pulled under by the currents it made in passing and cracked my skull open against the hull. So why the bloody hell did I jump? "And _what_ call? I don't remember hearing anything!"

"I called you," she repeated, looking at me as if I were a specimen with particularly slow mental capabilities. "Summoned you. Of course you came, whether or not you could hear my voice. I used your True Name."

"My...?" I was stunned. Another shudder ran through me, but my mind was only on the implications of my True Name. It was not an uncommon concept, that names had power. A name was a very personal thing, after all, that embodied all one was and would be in their life. Symbolic of one's self, it could be argued. Plenty of myths and cultures believed that knowing a person's name would give you power over their life and soul, meaning the name was a secret shared only with trusted friends and family.

I had lost my name, the name that I had been given at my birth. I had forgotten it, replaced it with a new one, but it seemed it still had power over me.

"Where did you learn my name?" I demanded. "What is it?"

Her head tilted, the ends of her green hair brushing against her chin. "Bianca and Alastor, of course. When I came to check up on their progress, I learned that that toady Alastor took something from Nevys' pawn with personal information inscribed on it."

_Took something? Personal information?_ Some of the chill I'd been trying to ignore retreated as blood rushed to my head. _That's right! That bastard took my wallet and ID!_ I fumed at the reminder of one of my grudges against the fairies as a whole.

"It seems," Verte was continuing, "the sentimental pair were under the impression that they were keeping your True Name safe for you. Keeping it away from others."

"Safe?" A passing thought wished I'd had my own shrubbery thing to sit on. That was the last explanation I would have expected to get.

"Yes," the woman tapped a finger against the rim of her basket in an irritated fashion, "As always, Bianca is overly soft, in either the heart or the head. Dancing around such a golden opportunity instead of seizing it!" Her green eyes flashed.

Her finger stroked the wicker weave of her basket before she suddenly snatched my chin and pulled me down to her eye level. I felt unbearably uneasy at the sight of her eyes. They were like jade marbles, carved and set inside her head. Even the pupils didn't seem quite right, more like a dark shade of green than true black.

"_Nevys_," the name was uttered as if it had been coated with poison, "is a treacherous sneak, but it must be acknowledged that he is good at what he does. A master in enchantments and misdirection. Even knowing the part he played, we can do nothing to punish him if he cannot be caught! But you..." her hand caressed my cheek while her jade eyes seemed to impossibly grow colder, "We can use you to finally track him down."

"Wait, wait," I protested, pulling away, "I don't know how to find him either! I've no idea where he runs off to when he's on his own."

She seized my hand before I could get any further away. "You are the link, marked as his tool." I couldn't help glancing down at the sodden glove hiding the mark on my hand. As if in response to my thoughts, Verte peeled the glove from my hand to reveal the stark lines of the tattoo. "He formed a connection, did he not? Through this he knows at all times where you are and what you are doing. But this," her grip tightened painfully on my hand, "works both ways."

I tried to put up a confident front, but that was hard to do with cold water trickling down my neck and back and my bare feet freezing on the stone pavement of the street. "So now you've found me, your 'link', and want me to help you find Nevi? Why should I cooperate with you for that?"

"Because, if you do not," her slim fingers traced the mark on my hand, "you will bear this until the end of your days. And until the end of your days, you will live in fear of your True Name being invoked as before."

"You..." I felt speechless, "Blackmail..."

That almost smiling curve of her lips passed almost invisibly across the fairy's face before that impassive expression returned. "Whatever works in the end."

_This woman is dangerous._

Starting to echo down the alleyway was the clanking of metal armor. It was a horrible reminder of what had happened earlier, hardly an hour ago? Surely not much more than that. Verte made a soft tsking noise while finally looking away from me and just over my shoulder. "Those knights, bringing so much cold iron into the city. As if there wasn't more than enough here already."

She stood, and the shrubbery chair shook. Then, amazingly, it actually retracted its trunk and branches back downwards. _It's...it's reversing its growth?_ Impossible as that should have been, in seconds there was nothing more than a seed which Verte plucked up and dropped into her basket. "I'll take my leave now, for the time being, but we'll continue this later." She swept past me, the long trailing half skirt whispering over the ground. "Dawn tomorrow. Be waiting outside the city gates, unless you want me to Summon you once again."

"Wait a minute, I-" but when I turned around she was already gone. Just then a knight rounded the corner of the alley, stopping when he saw me. No, she, the uniform was for a female knight, like the one Sodia wore.

"There you are!" a peppy female voice echoed from under her helm. "Wow, you didn't even go that far, but I lost you just like that!" She reached up and pulled the helm off, revealing sparkling green eyes and a long blond braid that coiled around her head like a coronet.

Immediately I was on my guard, expecting I was going to be arrested like everyone else the knights had been apprehending. _Would be just my luck if Flynn found out I was still here, and took me aside to ask questions about before_. I needed to-to-

I sneezed. Followed up by another. The knight laughed at me. "There, see? You shouldn't have wandered off before. Now you'll be lucky if you didn't catch a cold like that." She approached me, I stiffened but made no move to run (I'd have to get past her anyway) since she didn't seem very threatening. "Hey, c'mon. Let's go get you something dry and warm to change into."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously, "Right now, shouldn't you be under orders to help subdue the city or something?"

She shrugged, "Yeah, sure, but it's a Knight's job to help people, right? So I wanna help you!" She nodded as if that settled everything. "So that's it, let's go!" Helplessly, I smiled and let her draw me along by the hand. "By the way, my name's Sarah. What about you?"

"Le-" I coughed, thinking that under the circumstances it might not be wise to use my 'real' name, "Lena. It's Lena."

x x x

"All that about it being a knight's job to help people..."

"Well sorry! But it's not like there's barracks or dorms here like in cities under the protection of the Empire! Besides, we'll be leaving again soon enough, and this place can go back to normal."

As Sarah had said, Nordopolica was not an Empire friendly city, so there wasn't any place established for the knights. So what else could the Imperials do but occupy buildings in the city? They'd claimed the coliseum and the wings connected to it as their temporary base. We were in some of the inn rooms that had been (reluctantly) given over to the knights.

"You seriously don't have anything?" Sarah wheedled as she tossed me a blanket in lieu of a towel.

"I keep telling you I don't. I'm not from around here and I lost my bag," and boy, did I hope it was on the _Fiertia_ and not the bottom of the harbor. "What about you? Don't tell me the only clothes you have is that uniform you're wearing."

"Er, no, but I haven't had the chance to wash them for awhile. Ah, wait! I think I have a spare uniform left that's still clean!"

"Spare?" And sure enough, Sarah was pulling a neatly folded blue and brown uniform from her standard issue packs. I eyed it dubiously, "Hey, you sure that's a good idea? Letting a complete stranger use your uniform, there's all kinds of mischief I could get up to while looking like one of you guys."

My point was a bit spoiled when I sneezed again. Sarah raised her eyebrows and smirked at me. "Heh, do you really have the luxury to get worried over something like that? Here," she tossed the uniform onto one of the beds, "better change quick." And with a careless wave she ducked out the door again.

"...Weird knight..." Taking advantage of the privacy I quickly stripped the wet clothes that were trying to turn themselves into my second skin. Briskly rubbing myself down with the blanket, it occurred to me for the first time that earlier, when Sarah asked me if there was anyone I could go to for some help, I could have directed her to Bill and Gretchen's shop. _...No, I wouldn't feel right imposing on them, and I wouldn't be able to pay for new clothes or weapons either. Not that I know what I could do to pay Sarah back either..._

I grabbed the uniform and tried to sort out how to put it on. "Dammit, what practical reason could a military have for putting its female personnel in _skirts?_" _Ah, Roy Mustang, could your influence have stretched as far as other worlds?_

The door banged open behind me and made me jump. "Ah ha ha~! You look good, Lena!" the crazy knight woman sang out behind me.

"Don't you knock?" I spluttered, glad I'd managed to figure it out just before she'd come in.

"Nope~" And then she had the gall to giggle. "Aaah, I bet everyone'll think you're an authentic Knight! And then you'll do good deeds for the poor, with the knowledge of having fulfilled justice being the only reward you accept-" I stared at her as she visibly withdrew into her own imaginary world, eyes all asparkle. "-and the rumor will spread until it reaches the captains! Then the Commandant will want to personally commend you, and you'll be given a brigade of your own, and-"

"Did you hit your head or something?"

She stopped mid ramble and gave me a grin that reminded me of Raven. "What? I can dream, can't I?"

I shook my head at that. "Even dreamers have to wake up eventually."

Sarah marched over in front of me and stood with her hands on her hips, giving me a stern look. "And why is that? Who says I have to stop dreaming?"

"I used to dream a lot too," I said bitterly, "But if all you do is dream, when the real world catches up to you it'll be all the more painful."

"So what?" She spread her arms as she shrugged, "I know well enough what's going on in the world. There's all the tension between the guilds and the Empire, even with the new treaty that Captain Flynn and Ioder have been working so hard for. What we've done here today probably won't win us any of the people's favor, but on the other hand we kept the Hunting Blades from going totally crazy and making worse damage than they did. Though that was easier than I expected, I wonder if there was someone else doing the same?" the knight mused. I decided not to mention that it was probably because of Yuri and the others. From what I knew of her, that would set Sarah off on another rambling dissertation of great deeds for the sake of great deeds.

And then suddenly Sarah was in my face again, "So yeah, I know perfectly well that there's stuff going on with no real winners and everybody's a loser. But that's the point of epic and outrageous stories, right? So even during bad times we can believe that the best can still happen?"

"I suppose..."

"Repeat after me!" she practically shouted in my face, startling me again. "Great stories and great Heroes make great role models!"

"You don't seriously want me..."

"GREAT STORIES and GREAT HEROES make GREAT ROLE MODELS!" she declared even more loudly.

"Er..." I grimace as I realized I couldn't get out of it, "Great stories and great heroes-"

"Louder!" she ordered, stamping a foot. "Or do you want me to take the uniform back?"

"_Great stories and heroes make great role models!_" I yelped.

Sarah beamed at me. "Yeah! From now on, that should be our motto!"

"'Our motto'?"

"Alright!" she clapped her hands together. "I'm gonna go see what we're doing about food tonight, I'll try to bring some back for you. Tonight you can use my bed, I can just get Tina to share her's with me," and of course I had no idea who Tina was, "or I'll just steal her bedroll again. You stay here and try to get warm again! I'll be right back, Lena!" And the door banged open and shut as she left again before she was even finished speaking.

I stared at the door she'd just left through. "..._Really_ weird knight..." Shivering again, I looked around for where I'd left the blanket from before. My eye was caught by the mirror in the corner of the room. I walked over and stood in front of it.

My hair was lank and stringy, starting to frizz now that it had time to dry but hadn't been combed properly. I was still barefoot, and my skin looked paler than usual. The uniform Sarah was loaning me was about two sizes too big as she was considerably taller than me. And, er, she filled it out in certain areas better. I wasn't wearing any of the armored parts, it wasn't necessary after all.

Frowning, I pulled my hair back with one hand and used the other to wrap my braid around the base of the tail formed, knotting it in on itself to tie it in place. With my distinctive hairstyle so altered and with the uniform no one would recognize me at a glance. _I suppose that's a good thing right now._ But it was terribly depressing, seeing myself playing the role of another person again.

What was I going to do next? "I only have two options," I told myself bleakly, "Find a ship that'll take me across the ocean so I can follow the others, or go talk to Verte tomorrow."

_"Dawn tomorrow. Be waiting outside the city gates, unless you want me to Summon you once again."_

"No," I told my reflection, "I guess there really is only one choice, and it was made for me."

x x x

I was up unbearably early the next morning, before the Sun had even started to rise. Not only did I want to get out before all the knights were active, or before Verte decided it would be fun to puppeteer me out of the city, but I'd had troubled sleep the whole night. I'd dreamed of standing on a cliff, watching the sunset shining on waves, and wondering if maybe the thing to do was throw myself into the waves and swim to the other side. _What_, I still wondered_, would I have found across the water?_ At one point I had actually stepped forward, ready to trust myself to the mercy of the fall and the water, but then a fog had rolled in from behind me and I woke up.

I'd meant to change back into my dried clothes and leave Sarah's uniform behind, but there were still knights posted as sentries all over Nordopolica. If I were dressed like one of them, the odds that they'd stop me were drastically lowered. And I never knew if one of Flynn's knights might actually recognize me. After an internal struggle, I'd left her a note apologizing and promising I'd find a way to return it, that I'd take it to Zaphias and have someone there hold it for her if necessary. The folded note was sitting on my pillow, where she'd find it once she realized I'd left.

The memory of the oddball knight made me smile. She certainly meant well, and it was nice to know that there were people like her serving under Flynn. Sarah might not have shared his exact ideals, but there seemed to be plenty in common. If he could find more people like her to follow him...

And maybe people like Tina. She, it turned out, was another female knight who was usually assigned to share a room or missions with Sarah. Unlike her exuberant partner, Tina was petite and quiet with mousy brown hair. She hadn't questioned my presence at all, most likely already well used to Sarah's whims and spontaneity. Her only reaction was to stare at the blonde woman and say, "I get the pillow."

I snickered a bit at the memory. Then glanced around nervously. So far no one had stopped me as I walked down the streets. I'd been a bit worried, since I wasn't wearing the full uniform. And, most questionable, I didn't have boots. Neither Sarah or Tina had been my size, even if they'd had extra shoes, so I'd ripped the sleeves off of my turtleneck and wrapped them around my feet. It kept some of the cold from them and provided scant protection, but was better than nothing. I probably had the early hour's poor lighting to thank for no one noticing that.

Without any trouble I made it to Nordopolica's gate and thought I was home free.

"Hey!" Of course it wouldn't be so easy. I sighed and turned back. The two knights I'd overlooked guarding the main entrance were coming towards me with pikes pointed my way. But when they got closer one said, "Oh, you're one of ours!" and the weapons were held at ease.

"No one is allowed to leave the city at this time," the other guard said. "We'll have to ask you to go back."

"Um..." I tried to think of an excuse, "The captain asked me to deliver an urgent message. I need to leave right away."

"We haven't heard anything about this..." the first one said uncertainly.

The second remained steadfast, "I'll have to ask you to show us the message."

"It's not written down," I tried, "so there's no mix ups like last time. I have it memorized."

But the second knight was looking me over more closely. "If it's so urgent, why aren't you mounted? In fact, you're hardly prepared for a journey outside a barrier." _Crap_. "You're going to have to come with me, we can go speak with the Captain directly about your orders."

"But I really really have to leave now..." I was nervously trying to figure out a way to take them both down with my bare hands before they managed to restrain me. Just then the wind picked up, blowing in through the gate from the outside. It seemed to carry a dust that tickled at my nose, and hit both of the guards full in the face.

The suspicious one leaned against his pike. "Suddenly I...can't keep my eyes open..." His partner slumped and fell right over, armor jangling noisily but not waking him up. And the suspicious one collapsed on him a moment later, snoring.

"Verte?" I guessed, turning to look in the direction the breeze had come from. And the fairy was indeed standing there, wiping what looked like traces of yellow pollen from her hands. _...Is she part grass pokemon or something? Sleep powder attack?_

"Come," the fairy said, "We'll speak where we won't be observed." Without waiting for me to reply or any sign that I'd follow, she turned with a swish of skirts and walked away from the city.

My jaw clenched as I tried to hold the reigns on my dislike for her attitude. For the time being, unfortunately, she held the upper hand. So I followed her and hoped I wasn't making a mistake.

We kept walking, the sky growing lighter and colored above the horizon with pink, yellow gold rays starting to touch the grass. Finally, in a small act of rebellion, I stopped. "This should be far enough. What do you have to say to me?"

Verte turned to face me, unbothered as if she'd been the one to decide we'd talk there. "Your current name is Letha, is it not? And its meaning is along the lines of 'forgetfulness'."

"Yeah," I responded, wondering where she was going with this.

"Correct me if I'm mistaken, but you've been suffering from memory problems since you became Nevys' pawn, have you not?"

"Yes, that's right," I had to say. Was she going to finally give me an answer to what that was about? Back when I'd first realized it was happening, I'd gotten Nevi to promise he'd look into it, but I was sincerely doubting he'd had any intentions of fixing it. If he tried to learn anything about it in the first place.

"Tell me, then, what was the first thing you forgot?"

I wanted to sarcastically say, 'Well I don't know, I seem to have forgotten.' But I bit my tongue and said, "I didn't realize I'd forgotten anything until I couldn't remember my real name."

There was that flicker of smile across her face again, vanishing just a hint slower than previously. Now, from her cool manner tones and generally impassive face, it would seem she was a nearly emotionless woman. But her hateful words when speaking of Nevi, the derisive scorn directed at Alastor and Sybelle, and those brief flashes of expression were starting to clue me into the fact that there was a lot more going on under the surface.

"One more question, _Letha_. Have you forgotten anything that occurred after you arrived on Terca Lumireis?"

"N-no, I haven't..." It had never occurred to me before, but that was strange... Why lose only memories of Earth? And why was there something so selective about that memory loss, taking away all my personal life and information, but leaving snatches of conversation or lessons learned that provided useful information?

Verte seemed to radiate triumph. As much as she could without changing expression. "What Nevys had done," she finally began to explain, "was to layer more than one spell on you."

I frowned, rubbing my left hand with my thumb. "You mean how the mark can sense that heirloom thing, and the weird permeability power he gave me that makes things go through me."

"Oh, there is far more than just that. Sly as he is, he does his work well enough that it could even be called a work of art," she grudgingly conceded. "There is one particularly insidious geis he's crafted on you. One that ties into that very name of yours. He _renamed_ you, or near enough, and with a name that is constantly reconstructing your identity."

"He what? What's that supposed to mean?" Oh, I already was catching on, but there were implications I didn't want to consider. That I was refusing to consider.

"Must I spell it out?" The words sounded put upon, but there was a sense that she may in fact be relishing the moment. "When you came here, you left your name behind, tied to everything you were when you lived on Earth, and started calling yourself by a new name he chose for you. As you accepted the name as your own and answered to it, time after time, the spell worked into the name took root and flourished. And the first memory it erased was of the name it had replaced."

"No, that can't be right..." I continued to deny. "Nevys didn't name me anything... I chose to use a different name myself... And Ludwig-" and there was the possibility I didn't want to look closer at.

"Yes, Ludwig," Verte agreed. "Ludwig gave you your name. Even if you hadn't made the decision yourself to create a new identity, he could have suggested it to you. For your own safety of course."

_"You know...this might not be the best solution..."_

_"What I mean to say is, you could tell people that you're my niece."_

_"You've lived alone with me most of your life, so that can cover any holes in what you know about other towns and current events."_

_"The Letha River supposedly makes anyone who drinks it waters forget things. Ghosts that do not drink from it are trapped in this world by their lingering attachments. Maybe you found it and fell in...little Letha."_

"No..." I whispered.

"Yes," Verte confirmed. "Ludwig has been following Nevys' bidding admirably this whole time."

x x x

And there the chapter ends. Shorter than usual, but even if I took my usual length of time writing this, I think we were in for a short chapter. Till next time, my lovelies!


	55. Chapter 55: Lonely Nobody

__Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow Americans! And anyone else who feels like joining in the Turkey Spirit! *Sighs* I'm actually not really celebrating until tomorrow. Real life matters and what not. But Yay! My bestest best friend is home, and she totally rocks!

Katheroslibra is working on a comic about the background of her fairy character, and Alastor is making an appearance as his teacher. Check it out~ http: /katheroslibra. deviantart. com/

And Natsuki Ayaka has made _more_ fanart inspired by Tales SIs, so go see Letha joining the line up! http: /natsukiayaka. deviantart. com/gallery/ #/d4fvz0r

Music I listened to while writing this chapter, and then had stuck in my head while writing the first half of this chapter.  
"Who We Are" Red  
"Not Strong Enough" Apocalyptica  
"In the Middle of the Night" Within Temptation  
And then insert any touching violin music you like during the second half.

Angelic:

Slow chapters are just as important, if for nothing else than to let the previous action packed chapters cool down a bit so the story can actually be explained a little. And now everyone who had guessed or had not guessed at Ludwig's role know for sure! Unless the roles all change _again._ ;)

Christine:

Osu! (That rubbed off on me from someone in high school...good thing I don't do it much.) Let's see just how many years it'll take to finish this! ...Saying that actually makes me feel a bit daunted.

Good Samaritan isn't a _bad_ guy, he just has a bad boss! Reaaally bad boss.

x x x

Chapter 55: Lonely Nobody

x x x

"I...I..." No matter how I wished for one, I couldn't think of an argument in Ludwig's defense. I knew already, didn't I? At the beginning I had thought it odd that he'd been so helpful to a stranger, welcoming into his home, his family, his life. Even if I had accepted it, been grateful for it, that didn't change that it was odd. And then Yuri had dropped the bomb about overhearing...

"Wait, that can't be right!" Verte's head tilted slightly at my outburst. "Yuri overheard Ludwig talking to someone before! Talking about killi-" my voice skipped weirdly, "-killing me..."

She was unimpressed by this revelation, "Your point?"

"Nevi-Nevys needs me, right?" I tried to sound reasonable and not panicked, "After the trouble to bring me here and all, why would he turn around and make plans to kill me? That doesn't make sense at all!"

"When put that way, your words are true," Verte said a bit too carelessly, "But you're overlooking a few details." She stopped and then added like an afterthought, "No, I suppose you wouldn't be overlooking them, they were intentionally kept from your notice."

I didn't think I was going to like this... "What haven't I noticed?"

"Never mind that. You," the fairy stepped in closer towards me and I resisted the impulse to retreat back, "are the tool he has been crafting for his purpose. But if he decides you're not taking a form to his satisfaction, he'll willingly scrap the defective tool and forge a new one." One finger traced along my jaw, and then grabbed my chin. "Do you think he'll merely stand by and watch? From the moment I True Named you and you answered my Summons, Nevys will have realized that I have found you and will use you. Now, if he does not dispose of you quickly, I will find _him._"

I jerked my head back and away. "Then if I don't agree to help you, I should have nothing to worry about from him." I mercilessly shoved down the hurt and betrayal that had been knotted in my heart since Yuri had first given me his unwelcome news. Trying to deal with a fairy with such shaken feelings was dangerous. "It's not like it makes a difference to me who's side I work for. I've seen nothing to convince me that either is better than the other."

Her green eyebrows raised up a fraction, "Even after learning what he's done to you? Don't tell me you don't mind it?"

"Of course I mind," the thought of Nevys having renamed me and tampering with my memories left a foul taste, "But I also have objections to your way. You manipulated me, hurt Belius to the point where she couldn't defend herself, and had Leviathan's Claw kidnap me!"

"Oh, you realized?"

"Not many green haired woman seem to be that interested in meeting me," I pointed out dryly. "And I don't trust any of you; not you, not Nevys, not Alastor, and not that Bianca or Sybelle or whatever she goes by! So why should I bother switching sides now, if it'll give the one who 'always knows where I am' a reason to kill me?"

But during my speech Verte seemed to lose interest in what I was saying, giving her attention to the grassy plain around us. "Reason?" she said in an off hand tone. "You don't seem to understand your place. Your usefulness to Nevys has already been compromised and he's already taken the steps to remove the threat." And she nodded to the side, inviting me to look around.

When I did my mouth went dry. While we were talking we'd been surrounded by a pack of white furred, red eared fairy dogs. Ranged behind them was a smaller collection of the larger, darker Cù Sìth. Despite being nearly the size of small ponies, the larger dogs blended into the surrounding terrain terrifyingly well with their grass-like pelts.

Swallowing, my hands fell to my waist for the reassurance of grasping the hilts of my weapons...and I remembered that I had none.

"This makes your choice nice and clear cut." I shot a look over my shoulder back at Verte, wary of turning my back on the advancing fairy dogs. But I wasn't suspecting to see a shimmering distortion behind her back. From nowhere a pair of green wings materialized, like a delicate arrangement of stained glass shards. The seemingly fragile wings flattened the grass around us when they lifted her up into the air with a single beat.

"Your options stand thus," she laid out in a business like tone. "You can try and handle Nevys' pets on your own, and die one way or another. Or, you can agree to ally with me and I'll help you survive this day." A growl started in one of the fairy dog's throats, a rumble soon picked up by its companions until it became a dull roar that vibrated through my chest. Panicking, I whirled in the center of the tightening circle, trying not to let any of the dogs out of my sight long enough for it to attack my back.

"Well?" she prompted. "Your decision?"

_Tch! She's trying to keep me off balance, so that I can't think about my options properly!_ As if the fairy dogs weren't enough pressure already. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, "Fine. You win. So do something about this!"

"Firstly..." Verte reached out a hand with fingers splayed wide. The growling broke apart into yips and barks, and the dogs making up the innermost ring of the pack started snapping and biting at their legs. _No, at the grass!_ The grass had come to life, snagging at their paws and twining around their lower legs to tie them to the ground. And their own bodies served as a barrier between me and the Cù Sìth. A temporary solution, but it bought me a minute or two.

"Catch these," I looked up and saw her tilting her hands to drop a pair of daggers. They tumbled down end over end. Instead of trying to catch them like Verte said, I pulled away on reflex rather than reach out and grab the wrong ends. With a small thump they landed on the ground a few feet from me, and I swooped down to snatch them up.

In my hands the hilts were smooth and seemed to yield the tiniest bit under the pressure of my grip. They lacked any crossguard to protect my hands with, but instead on one side of each dagger there was a curious fanning arrangement of spines. The centermost spine formed a ninety degree angle with the main dagger blade. The main blade was a dull gray-green, while the spines were vibrantly colored, red for one dagger and orange for the other.

A howl sounded, rising in pitch and volume like a police siren. I spun towards it in time to see a Cù Sìth leaping over a the head of the white fairy dogs in its way and bounding towards me.

With a shout I lunged towards the Cù Sìth, putting all my momentum behind the swing of the red spined blade. The massive dog dug its forepaws and nails into the ground to stop itself from running into my attack. It snarled as the blade passed by just short of its ember eyes.

Not trying to fight against my momentum, I actively increased it by pivoting on one foot and swinging the other out behind me. It pulled me around again, orange spined blade leading. The Cù Sìth had gathered itself and pounced when it saw the opening of my exposed back, but instead it got the full collection of orange spines raking across its muzzle as my dagger smashed against the side of its face.

It yelped and snapped its teeth, trying to catch my arm in its jaws. But I was already moving to the side to avoid getting plowed under by its bulk. Thrusting forward with the red spined blade again, I punctured its neck with the main blade and yanked it to the side viciously to open a nasty gash.

Blackish blood poured from the wound as I jumped back. The Cù Sìth was hacking up even more of the blood. It was still dangerous, but less of a threat and not even that for much longer.

I moved onto the next group, another of the pony sized dark green dogs with a triad of white fairy dogs that had won free of the binding grass. The four could be dealt with at once with a proper spin attack (ah, no, Phantom Blade. The manual had called it Phantom Blade, but at the time I had laughed at how it reminded me of Zelda). The technique was even more dangerous when I used the spines to etch extra lines of aer in the spiral. The damage done to the dogs wasn't life threatening, but it was enough to make them back off and have second thoughts about rushing in.

Verte saying, "Up you go," was all the warning I had before there was a surge of strange energy other than aer and a _tree_ shot up from the ground under me. I got caught up in its branches, wincing as thorns caught at my skin and the borrowed knight's uniform. Something collided with the base of the trunk, the vibrations traveling up to shake me and the frond like leaves that had started unfurling from their buds.

I twisted around in the forking branches to look down at the roots. Two white fairy dogs, one lay in a crumpled heap and the other shook its head as it stood again on wobbling legs. But more were already gathering at the bottom, growling and snarling as they jumped and clawed at the trunk, scratching off bits of bark while trying to get at me.

Still, as I looked further I saw several more of the fairy dogs lay prone on the ground, grass nooses having wrapped around their necks and tongues lolling from their gaping mouths. The one Cù Sìth I'd stabbed in the neck had given into the fatal wound, the grass under its body drenched in black blood.

"Disappointing." I looked up and saw Verte poised on the upper boughs of the tree, the slender branches hardly bending under her weight. "One dead and four merely wounded? I expected more."

"Didn't you promise to get me out of this?" I reminded her.

"Certainly not. I gave you my word that you would live this day." I made a face at her nitpicking. She anticipated the thoughts I was having, "And don't think I'm obeying the letter and not the spirit of the agreement: if you're to continue surviving Nevys' attempts on your life you will need to be made stronger." She gestured to include all the fairy dogs still clamoring for my blood. "View them as the first step in your training."

"Tch," I looked back down at the dogs at the ground. "So you're leaving the dirty work for me." The smaller fairy dogs had backed off from the tree and one particularly large Cù Sìth threw itself at the tree. The impact nearly shook me from my haven in the branches, I threw my arms out to brace myself and got stabbed by more thorns for the trouble. But my position was too tenuous, one or two more knocks on the wood and I'd fall.

Twisting around further I managed to get my feet mostly under me and then pushed away from the branches holding me. I dropped onto the back of the Cù Sìth, clamping my legs around its sides so that it couldn't shake me when it reared up and tried to buck me off. Reaching forward around its neck I was about to deal a fatal attack to the throat again. But it suddenly ducked its head and rolled forward. "Ugh!" I was momentarily crushed under its weight as I got pinned between it and the ground.

It rolled off me, and then my shoulder was seized in its jaws. I cried out in pain, hands flying to the maw chomping on my right shoulder. Momentarily I had even forgotten the daggers in my hands, but fortunately hadn't dropped them. When I reflexively tried to grasp at the Cù Sìth's muzzle to pry it off I ended up scoring wounds across its face.

When it let go with a whine I rolled away, hissing at the pain in my ribs the movement brought. Somehow I got back up onto my knees. Breathing was an agony, it would be just great if my ribs had been cracked. And the white and dark green fairy dogs were coming closer again.

I ground my teeth and forced myself to stand up again. "Wind Blade!" I didn't form the aer with finesse, opting for speed instead. The half formed arc of cutting air sliced through the line of dogs, blowing them back. I threw more to break up the formation of the others. "Wind Blade, Wind Blade!" Panting shallowly to avoid straining my ribs, I eyed the dogs still standing.

"Is this why you've been following that group around?" Verte asked. "Because you just can't stand on your own?"

"Shut...up..."

"Using those others," she continued as if she hadn't heard me, "has kept you alive, but it has stunted the growth of your strength. Humans grow by hitting their limits, time and time again, and striving to surpass them."

The fairy dogs all pressed forward again, and I cast more Wind Blades to drive them off. But the last one was hardly more than a soft breeze that ruffled their fur.

"In a fight for your life you must either break past those limits or die."

"Saying that..." I panted, "isn't any...help at all!" My vision narrowed until all I could see was the dark furred face and glowing ember eyes of a Cù Sìth.* The monstrous dog knocked me over onto my back, pinning my arms to the ground with its huge forepaws. It breathed in my face, hot and damp, and then its white fangs started to close on my throat.

"No! Get off!" I desperately tried to pull my arms free. _NO! I don't-I don't want to die!_

My left hand burned. _I won't die!_

I wrenched my hands away from the ground, the sudden freedom disorienting. I rolled through its teeth and forelegs and scrambled away, seeking to break free from the ring of fairy dogs. From behind there was an odd rustling and frantic yelping, abruptly cut silent by a sharp snapping.

The heat faded from my hand. A warm trickle ran down my neck, blood oozing from the fortunately shallow bite.

Fangs clamped down on my right calf, yanking me back as whichever dog caught me snarled victoriously. I twisted over as much as I could, whipping my left leg in from the side. The heel of my foot slammed into its white head next to its eye, staggering the beast. The jolt that ran up my leg was painful and the dog didn't let go, but at least it was dazed and no longer trying to rip my leg right off.

_Something's wrong_. I drew my foot back and lashed out at the fairy dog again. But it growled and drove its teeth even deeper into my leg and I gasped in pain. _Why isn't the permeability thing working again? It has before, in a case just like this!_

"Dammit, let _go!_" I snarled back at the dog, pulling my savaged leg towards me before jamming it back further into its mouth. That was the last thing the white dog expected, it gagged and choked before letting go completely. Bare seconds later a tree branch came down from above and wrapped around its neck, lifting it clean off the ground and high into the air. I followed with my eyes as it arced through the air, until the branch settled in place again with the struggling dog hanging from the end as if it were an ornament strung up on a Christmas tree. Held up so high, with no support to take the pressure off its windpipe from the branch that had lassoed the creature, it wouldn't be long before the dog suffocated and died.

To my bewilderment, I realized it wasn't the first to suffer such a fate. A Cù Sìth was tangled in another section of the branches, contorted at unnatural angles that spoke of a broken neck and spine. A few more dogs, white and dark alike, writhed weakly in their own snares like the one that had been gnawing on my leg. It was...a macabre image.

_Ho snap, Verte's tree is evil._

And the fairy that had grown this killer tree stood serenely at the very top, still as a statue carved from the living wood. Just watching the carnage below her.

There was only one of the Cù Sìth left with a handful of its smaller white kindred, all at least partially wounded. A quick head count confirmed that there were five of those.

The remaining Cù Sìth howled and the fairy dogs leaped forward as one. I staggered up onto my feet, nearly collapsing again at the agony that shot up my legs. _Crap, putting weight on my feet hurts!_ Especially the bitten right leg, but my left foot ached from repeatedly kicking that one fairy dog in the head. I did my best to remain steady and ignore this as I settled into a stance with my daggers.

I unleashed one more Wind Blade point blank at one dog, the aer cutting deep into its chest. A quick slash at the second nearest dog successfully sliced across its face, blinding it, and a jab in the chest with both daggers put it down for good.

Darting through the gap I'd opened by downing the two, I spun and focused most of the remaining aer I could bear handling into another one of the formulas Rita had pounded into my skull for later practice. "O caprice of innocent waters, Champagne!" The water element aer flung out from me in the pattern of the formula, hitting the ground at the feet of the remaining three white dogs. From it bubbles of water fountained up into the air, like a curious inverse of the bubbles rising from the bottom of a glass of champagne or regular soda. The bubbles of water rushed upward from underneath the dogs, bursting on impact to release aer charged water on them.

And then I took my turn rushing the fairy dogs, while they were preoccupied with the barrage of water. They were caught in what looked like a comical canine variety of dance, hopping around trying to get free from the spell. One escaped it only to get the orange spined dagger deep in its back right between the shoulder blades. Another snapped angrily at a bubble and unexpectedly found my red spined dagger thrusting through the palate of its mouth into the brain.

The spell ran its course by that point, leaving me with one more white fairy dog and the Cù Sìth to deal with. And then there was only the Cù Sìth, as I brought both daggers slamming down on the top of the smaller dog's head. It dropped to the ground, two bloody lines opened across its skull.

Panting shallowly still, I stood over the bodies of the fairy dogs I'd felled while watching the lone survivor warily. Holding up the daggers seemed like a pointless waste of energy, I simply let them hang loosely in my hands at my sides. The Cù Sìth stared back at me, most of the injuries I suspected it had acquired were disguised by the dark color and matted tangle of fur, but the cuts across its muzzle and above one of its eyes were still apparent.

"Well?" I coughed lightly and winced at the spasm of pain in my ribs, "Gonna run? Or haven't you had enough?" It growled as if it understood. Not all that implausible. The Cù Sìth's head lowered with its ears laid back as its growl rose in volume, and then it barked once.

A sharp pain in my left ankle made me cry out and look down. The last dog I'd used Wind Blade on was lying on its side, but had been close enough to catch my ankle in its teeth and now held on with a vengeance. I had to drop to one knee and slash through its neck to finish it off before it could crush a bone or something.

But the distraction was more than I could afford. The huge maw of the dark dog closed on my left arm, still outstretched to administer that killing dagger stroke. It closed with a crunch, making me scream in pain, before letting go again and jumping back out of reach of retaliation. The orange spined dagger fell from my hand, my arm ruined past the point of being any more use in a fight. And, unlike what I was used to, there was no Estelle there to use her powers to fix such an injury in a flash. I wished I at least had some gels with me, but the only ones I had left were back in my bag. Wherever that was.

The Cù Sìth feinted towards me, causing me to unnecessarily jump to the side in evasion. A choked sob of pain escaped me as the move jostled my broken arm. As if my legs and ribs weren't enough of a literal pain. A coughing bark from the large fairy dog sounded annoyingly like a laugh.

_What do I do?_ Verte wasn't making any move to help me. She was just visible off to the right, silent monarch reigning over a field of dead dogs and one fucked up Christmas tree. Something had to be seriously wrong with the way these fairies' heads worked.

Meanwhile the Cù Sìth was circling around me, forcing me to shuffle around in place to keep it from getting behind me. I grit my teeth before yelling, "Dammit, why don't you just _do_ something?" and threw my remaining dagger at the dog. It dodged without giving the blade a second look and rushed forwards.

I smirked triumphantly. Stepping back gingerly on my right foot, I took as deep a breath as I could stand. The Cù Sìth lunged, trying to go for my already injured neck. I stepped forward again, putting all my momentum, my weight, and most importantly all the energy and aer I could scrape together into my right hand. It struck flat against the matted fur of the dog's chest as I released the aer from my palm. The aer spiked into the dog without mercy, dealing internal damage that final killed it.

Its body kept flying forward, and I was just too spent to try and avoid getting trapped under the dead beast. Nor could I push its dead weight off me with my one relatively good hand. Lying under it, I stared up at the sky.

_Ah_, I thought, noting the pale gray and blue that was spreading, with a rosy blush off in the east. _Good morning..._

x x x

"Mmm...hmm?" I cracked my eyes open, blinking at the sudden light, and tried to raise my hands to rub at my face. But trying to move my left arm awakened terrible pain. When I sucked in a sharp breath in surprise the pain resurged in my ribs as well. Biting my lip, I struggled to stay perfectly still. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes to roll down the edges of my face until they were lost in my hairline.

"Took your time, didn't you. Have a nice dream?"

Using as little air as possible I whispered, "No." I couldn't remember any dreams at all.

I blinked, clearing the tears from my eyes, and then could see Verte was standing above me, looking down. Her green hair looked feathery as it framed her down turned face. The soft effect it gave was at odds with the coldness in her eyes. "And here I was led to believe that humans had an indomitable will to live. But you would most certainly be a rotting corpse if left on your own." I twisted my expression into a scowl as best I could.

"It's an undeniable fact," she answered my expression placidly. "Even with my help, you just barely killed seven of them, only a third of their total numbers. If you were on your own, you'd have been torn apart before you even reached three." Her head bobbed in my vision and got closer, meaning she'd knelt down next to me.

"I'll have to keep a closer eye on you than I thought," a touch of dissatisfaction entered her voice, "and for now you'll be no use at all. There's no help for it but to leave you somewhere until you can be useful again." The fairy woman picked up my left hand without bothering to handle it gently. I ground my teeth as the pain made me feel sick to my stomach. "First, I'll make a slight adjustment here..." something small and rounded was pressed against the back of my hand for a moment before it seemed to liquify and disappear.

"Now get up," she gripped the collar of the knight's uniform and hauled me up.

I grabbed at her hands on my collar with my good hand. "That _hurts,_" I growled.

"Of course it does," she responded, "But this will be easier if you're standing."

_Easier? What_- There was another surge of that unidentifiable something, this time sweeping over me and feeling like it ran in a current through my body. Everything around me changed in a split second of time, abruptly and completely. It was like someone had taken two films and spliced them together, making the entire movie change midscene.

Gone was the bodies of the fairy dogs, as well as Verte's evil tree. Instead of out in an open field, we were standing in the shade of a small grouping of trees in an expanse of rolling field and low hills. Even the light from the sun had changed, it had moved across a chunk of the sky and was partly obscured by clouds. In the far distance I could make out cliffs rising up from the ground level. And, most importantly of all, not too far from us was..."Zaphias?"

The entire city was constructed on a massive hill that rose from the ground in a gentle swell. Like a bubble half way through rising up into the air. A wall and periodically spaced towers of white stone circled the outer city, another wall divided the city about halfway up the hill, and finally on the very top a massive sword like spire pierced the sky. The barrier was probably built into that spire, since the concentric rings floating protectively above the city seemed to be centered on it.

"Yes, it was the closest human community that I deemed an acceptable place to leave you while you rehabilitate yourself." Verte let go of me, the loss of support was unexpected so that my knees caved and I ended up kneeling on the ground. "Get up!" she commanded. "I can't bring you any closer than this, the iron would interfere enough as it is if I were to go alone. Go and find a healer for yourself, I'll be back for you in a few days." And then Verte vanished without a trace.

...

"EVEN IF YOU SAY THAT, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET THERE SAFELY WHEN I'M HURT LIKE THIS?" After that furious outburst I spent a minute doubled over trying to ride out the waves of pain I'd gotten from aggravating my ribs and injured arm.

It was then I realized that both the strange daggers I'd gotten from Verte were tucked into the waistband of the uniform I had borrowed from Sarah. I drew the orange spined one with my good right hand and looked at it. The hilt...was a smooth green material that had been twisted around into a more solid shape, like a spring that had had its coils welded together.

_I knew it seemed familiar. It's like a plant's stem. Somehow, Verte turned flowers into an almost conventional weapon._ I laid the dagger on the ground and pulled out the other one. _Hmm, Bird of Paradise? Flashy._ "In that case," I mumbled, "I guess it's a given I should name this one Phoenix," I looked down from the red spined Phoenix and back to the orange spined twin, "And this one would be Simurgh."

Putting them both back into my waistband, I used my right hand to push myself up from the ground again, "Upsy now..." I tottered on my feet until reasonably sure I wasn't about to fall flat on my face. _Next, I just have to get to the city, _"One step...at a time..." Looking up, I focused on Zaphias ahead of me. Probably only a few miles away. I staggered forward that one step, and another, and another, chewing on my lower lip to try and distract myself from the pain each step brought to my feet.

_It's gonna be a long day..._

x x x

It took hours to cross the wilderness from the random copse of trees where Verte (_Bitch_) had dumped me. And the day was getting dark early with the number of clouds that had been rolling in. Luckily, no monsters had bothered me. The knights probably helped keep the area around the capital pretty safe. Not that there weren't _any_, I saw some strange...oddish and hopip hybrid. And something a bit too far away for me to make out clearly other than that it was spherical... But they didn't bother me, maybe because they recognized the knight uniform and avoided me. Heck, that could be why I didn't have any trouble.

But...

Those hours were very lonely.

Since I'd arrived on Terca Lumireis, there was only one other time when absolutely no one else around. That time back when I'd just left Ludwig's home and had been trying to guess where I could most likely meet the others. At the time I hadn't thought about how alone I was. I'd gotten used to being isolated in the forest with Ludwig, and was expecting to see faces I knew soon enough.

But outside Zaphias, weak and hurting, I was terribly aware that there wasn't another human around for miles other than the promise of the city.

_I wonder...how the others are doing... During the escape from the harbor, the _Fiertia's_ ceres blastia should have reacted to Belius' apatheia... The power surge would have blasted them past the knights without problem, followed by Judith destroying the ceres blastia...and making her departure with Ba'ul as the Dragon Rider._

_But now they've had all day on that boat...and Chase is with them... Wonder what he'll do, stuck on a boat with them for a couple of weeks._ The thought made me smirk and dare a wheezing laugh. _Ahh, I bet Yuri'll have a few questions for him._

My amusement was short lived. After all...they'd have questions for me too. Some cowardly part of me wondered if it might be a good thing that Verte had snatched me away then. _But with her plans for me, I may not see the others anytime soon...if ever again..._ Even though there was nothing I could do about the situation, these thoughts and their like kept running through my head the whole time. But I wouldn't let myself stop walking for fear that I'd never get myself moving again.

The entrance to the lower quarter was unguarded. Running alongside the street was one of those waterways I recalled were all over the lower quarter. _Heh, like Venice..._ I tried to stay as far away from where the street dropped off to the river. Better not to tempt fate in my condition.

Even if there were no knights posted on the lookout (who's bright idea was that? Or were they just not taking the post seriously, or out on a coffee break, or what?) it wasn't long before my presence was noticed. Wary, mistrustful eyes were peeking at me from cracks in doors and windows, mothers pulling away the curious children who were bolder in their staring. Some men, all wearing hard expressions, stood in doorways or alley mouths like gatekeepers and watched me pass by. I didn't even consider talking to any of them, men, mothers, or children. None of them would have the inclination to help an injured stranger in knight's clothing.

In the end, after wandering the lower quarter aimlessly with no destination in mind, I reached a square where several streets intersected. There I stood at the edge of a large fountain, staring down into the clear pool of water while pondering what I ought to do next.

Where could I go to receive medical treatment? How could I even _pay_ for it when I got it? I seriously had nothing but the clothes on my back and my daggers. Even my own clothes (other than the tattered sleeves I'd wrapped around my feet) had gotten misplaced at some point, most likely when Verte had jumped me across continents.

"Looks to me as if you've fallen on hard times." Having somebody actually strike up a conversation with me was unexpected. I almost forgot myself in my surprise, remembering just in time to move slowly to avoid overreaching my taxed limits. An old man, hunched over from age and peering at me over a pair of battered and scratched spectacles, was examining me with the impunity the elderly have from seeing a lifetime of reality and getting the real important stuff in perspective. "Or should I say that hard times have fallen on you?"

"Maybe a bit of both," I spoke with a soft voice. Hurting ribs and all that. And then I had to admit, "I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself right now."

"Don't know what to do with yourself?" the old man repeated with a disbelieving noise. "A young Knight like you should be straight on her way to report and get her injuries fixed up in the royal quarter."

Giving the barest shake of my head, "No good. I may look like one," I glanced at my incomplete and torn uniform. It was ripped from thorns and bites, blood from my neck and left arm crusting on the collar and sleeve, and my right leg had a pretty obvious bite wound with even more dried blood. I had even ripped open the left side of the uniform myself, just enough that I could slide my broken left arm into the gap and keep it mostly secure instead of hanging free. "...with some stretch of the imagination, but I'm not with the knights. It's a bit of a long story, but in the end this uniform is all I have to wear for the moment." I grimaced, "And I'd really like to avoid the knights if at all possible."

His expression grew a little sterner. "Here now, we're not always on the best terms with the Knights down here, but we don't want to start any trouble with them. They're not about to come looking for you, are they?"

"Shouldn't be, I'm nobody important to them," I answered honestly. "Just that, there's some questions they'd probably ask that I'd be hard put to answer." Not just the hefty list of questions Flynn probably had, but whatever Alexei had been interested in that time we met him in Heliord. Ages ago, but who knew if he still wanted that little chat with me? And putting those two aside, I'm sure there'd be enough from the other officers about what a commoner without any official records whatsoever was doing running around impersonating an Imperial Knight. Fun stuff.

I shook my head again to myself, marveling at the predicament I'd gotten myself into, and realized the world kept moving even after I ceased the gesture. Lifting my good hand to my forehead in reaction to the dizzy spell, I realized I was listing to the side and about to fall over. "Oh dear..." I sat down on the edge of the fountain, grunting as I failed to do so gingerly enough to minimize the pain that accompanied the action. The dizziness hadn't passed, and I pressed my fingers to my eyes and bowed my head.

When it felt less like my brain was swimming around in my skull I lifted my head from hand again. I saw that a young boy in a striped brown shirt had joined the old man, nodding his head at something the elder had said before sprinting off down a street.

The old man turned back to me. "So what's your name?"

Lloyd's voice seemed to surface in my head, declaring, _'Give me your name and I'll give you mine!'_ I snorted at the thought. Before, the name thing had never been a big deal to me. I thought that in this situation, the man had every right to ask my name without offering his first. But lately...names had been taking on a greater importance than ever.

_Should I tell him or stick with a fake name? Keep using Lena or make something new up..._ But a new fake name sounded so absurd when I had no real name left to guard. Only a false name that came with a load of heavy baggage. "Wish I knew. You can call me whatever you want."

"Is that so?" he folded his thin arms. "In any case, most folks here just call me Hanks."

_Ah...I can't even work up much excitement over this..._ "Nice to meet you," I mumbled, thinking I needed to make the effort to be a bit polite. It's what I did, right? Listen, nod, and treat elders with respect? ...With some exceptions. Like God-knew-how-old fairies that jerked me around. Or Raven when he did something that didn't deserve respect. Like most of the time. _That's on purpose though, part of the persona he's made...right? ...I guess it's not a total sham, he wouldn't be able to pull it off so well if part of the act wasn't reality..._

A cool hand slipped up under the long strands of hair that had fallen over my face to press against my head. I blinked as my eyes refocused, I hadn't realized my vision had gone so hazy. Before me was a woman with chestnut brown hair in a bob cut and crows feet at the corners of her brown eyes. It was her hand on my forehead, replacing my own, and my eyes half closed in bliss at the feeling.

"She has a fever," the woman said, "And infection may have already started to set in. Arm is-" her hand left my head and prodded my arm experimentally, making me gasp and bite off a curse as my vision tunneled and I nearly black out, "-definitely broken. Leg is-" I was expecting the prod at my bite wound and held my breath as she poked and pressed down on the skin, "-not as serious, but needs to be cleaned and dressed. Anywhere else, dear?" For the first time in her cataloguing of my injuries she actually seemed to be talking to me.

"Ribs," I hissed as I exhaled the breath I'd been holding in. "Don't think they're broken, but they hurt..." And then I had to endure as she examined my chest and confirmed that they were fractured, but not outright broken and no danger to my internal organs. They'd heal normally, the issue was my arm. I hadn't done any first aid for it at all, believing that trying to do anything when I was worse than ignorant on the matter could make things worse.

"If all you want is my opinion," the woman was saying to Hanks and another very displeased looking man who had joined them, "she should be put somewhere safe and treated right away. She's not getting any better out here, and it's going to rain soon."

The man (and it was taking all I had not to just lean against the woman and fall asleep right then, so I didn't pay much attention to what he looked like) wasn't very pleased by this. "And then what? None of us have enough to spare to take in a freeloader. She would probably rob blind whoever takes her in anyway."

"Jean Valjean," I muttered to myself, interrupting the bickering for a second.

When I didn't follow up, the woman resumed her side of the argument, "Must be the fever. Can either of you in good conscience leave her on her own like this? Even if she robbed every house here, I still wouldn't regret that any more than if I ignored someone I could have helped."

_Such a vote of confidence..._

"Ha, can you tell that to whatever poor sap loses his savings to her? Or when the Knights come to haul him away for harboring a criminal?"

"I can and I will, if it comes to it. Though I can hardly see how you find her so dangerous. What great criminal would be sitting half dead in the street?"

"Alright, settle down you two," Hanks finally intervened, to the relief of my self esteem. "We're not getting anywhere with this, and we should make up our minds before that rain gets started. So you, miss has-no-name," I gave a slight nod to show I'd heard him, "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"...I-" Why were people always asking me this? Why did I always have to explain myself? And when I'd finally promised I _would_ explain, would tell the truth as it was, I went and got myself into this mess. "I'm sorry...Yuri..." I whispered. In my mind's eye, I could picture him standing with his back turned to me. But I could not, for the life of me, imagine what expression I would see on his face if he turned around. My mind added the rest of the group to its tableau, all facing away from me. "Sorry...guys..."

"Did she say...?"

"Hey, girl!" the man tried talking to me, and got scolded by the woman. I missed why exactly she did, since he kept talking without her objecting. "You're not talking about Yuri Lowell, are you?" I couldn't seem to form the words to answer. "Hey!"

"Stop that," the woman smacked his hand away from me. "If you let me treat her and she recovers, you can slap her around and make her talk as much as you want." _Hey hey, are you on my side or what?_

"I-I wasn't going to-!"

"In that case, we'll leave her in your hands, Lily," Hanks decided, ignoring the frustrated grumbling of the other man.

The woman, Lily, stood up with hands on her hips. "That's settled, so come on girl." I blinked muzzily at her, and then tried to stand up, almost not managing it until she and the man both gave me a hand. "We'll take her to the inn for now, what inn isn't always ready for new people? Later you men can decide who isn't too chicken to keep an eye on her in their own house."

I closed my eyes and let them lead me wherever.

x x x

Looking up any picture of a bird of paradise flower on google should give you an idea of the dagger design. I'll see what I can do about a rough sketch of them...sooner or later...

Bleh. 20 dogs or so total, if you're interested in knowing. Maybe more, I'm not sure how many exactly Verte took care of on her own. I'm not sure if my fight scenes are getting better, or just more gruesome?

Hanks seemed to me to be the unofficial spokesman of the lower quarter. He and the rest of the townsfolk may have seemed a bit out of character in how they first treated Letha, but we're getting a different look at them than in the game. In the game their community is like one big family that looks out for its own, and Yuri is already one of them. By extension, Yuri's friends would also be met with friendship. But here Letha is an outsider, and dressed like a knight on top of that (and most knights tended to look down on them as you'll remember). It would have been even more out of place, in my opinion, if she was welcomed with open arms.

YES, I named her Lily. It somehow seemed right. She has no relation to Yuri. That I know of. So far. ...Unless the plot bunnies start spawning. Which they likely will. The other appropriate name I liked from a random generator was Hester (the site said it means "star"). Speaking of which, anyone want to make any suggestions for what the lower quarter people will be calling Letha? ;) I thought you might like a chance to help make the decision~ I may or may not make a poll with the names I get, it'll depend on how many names people come up with.

Finally, I am considering what to do to celebrate the Christmas season, more information on that later.


	56. Chapter 56: Wavering Feelings

__This chapter feels like a whole lot of effort to not get very far...why did it take so long to write? Dunno why, but I also had trouble getting the site to upload it. Oh well, it's more to help transition to the next chapter.

Anyway, CHRISTMAS. I've been trying to decide what to do for my loyal readers this year! I will be accepting requests again, like I did last year. Same concept of "It's not part of the main Fairy Tales story line, but it's related." Not something AU, or that contradicts the already established story, or that I just can't see the characters doing. But if it's not one of the first two, I will do my best to make it work in a way that the third isn't a problem.

Besides just opening the floor to requests again, I was thinking about having another contest that would last until New Years. Because I'm just all shameless in wanting to see people write stories for me for a change. But a contest must have a reward, and I couldn't think of anything! The story is at a point where I don't think I can work in a cameo appearance again, at least not one on the level of LLOYD and Allie. *Sigh* Well, if anyone has good ideas for a prize, maybe we'll try to hold one anyway?

Aj70t:

Glad you enjoyed~ Though don't be so certain about which fairy is responsible for what just yet. In the end, all of them are hiding a little something extra up their sleeves.

Angelic:

When has Nevi ever _not_ been a jerkass bastard? He's just a bigger jerkass now than he let on before. The "ten times happier" thing from the omake is before Letha had to put up with all that other crap from him. Oh, how much she'd love to punch him now! Happy Dayz aren't quite here for her yet.

And Alastor. Heeeh, you're right about him being a smartass that poor Chase has to deal with. Him not rising up to make a good comeback about his hypothetical relationships is a bit of a nod to Shiroi Iyasu's character Ange. Because I (not so) secretly think that's a hilarious and adorable ship. But it's still intentionally vague there, since Ange is a bit AU to FTaBV's continuity.

x x x

Chapter 56: Wavering Feelings

x x x

There is nothing more healing to the human body than sleep. Well, in Terca Lumireis, gels and blastia with healing formulas go a long way, but even they couldn't replicate the same benefits of a deep sleep.

Though my rest wasn't as peaceful as could've been hoped. It was full of feverish dreams, replaying a constant loop of memories in my head.

_-Lily had the inn set me up in a room and provide extra towels and hot water. She cleaned away all the blood, my own and the darker blood of the dogs, slapping away my hand when I tried to do it myself-_

_-biting my bottom lip to keep from whimpering as I cleaned the cuts in my hands, trying not to make noise that would wake the inn owner, the maid, or Raven, or even the knight if he was still around. When the wounds from stupidly grabbing Cumore's sword (should've let him and the dog kill each other...run the other way) were clean I ate two apple gels to close the wounds and finally stop the pain-_

_-to set my broken arm Lily cut the sleeve of the uniform open, making me wince as I protested that I still had to return it. I shut up pretty fast when she straightened my arm to line up the bones again-_

_-Raven and Judith pulling the yellow spine from my shoulder, and apart from the pain all I could think of was 'why didn't it just go through?' Curse Nevys for being decidedly unhelpful even when he does try to help (or is he even trying?)-_

_-stripped off the rest of the borrowed uniform, discovering the other bites, bruises, and scratches she'd missed during her initial inspection and diagnosis. She clicked her tongue at the deep teeth marks in my right shoulder, made by a larger mouth than the ones marking my calf and ankle. The bruises and scratches, mostly picked up by my trip up and down the Evil Christmas Tree, were laughable in comparison-_

_-I was glaring down through tree branches at the group of Red-eyes surrounding the base of my tree, too close for me to escape from between them but not so close that I could get away by climbing across a branch over their heads to get by them. And then Gibbs ordered two of them to climb up and drag me down out of the tree, but before they could do more than grab at my feet a red fletched arrow (those arrows...Alastor's?) took one through the neck-_

_-red seeped through in tiny spots on the white bandages that dressed my varied injuries, a splint and sling immobilizing my arm-_

_-taking his arm in mine as my sidestep brought me up beside him and facing the same direction. One step forward and moving his arm to guide him, I used the Blood Alliance member's attack against him by using his own momentum to launch him over the rail. Turning to face my other opponent, the man who would be the first human I'd kill, (what? I don't want-) and my blood ran cold knowing-_

_-pressed something cold against my upper left arm and firmly said, "First Aid," and finally, finally! the constant aching throb coming from it receded. My caretaker whispered another First Aid over the slowly reknitting bones and flesh, moving on to my neck, the worst of the bites, my ribcage-_

_-the small child asleep with his head resting against my chest. The wolves didn't even bother to approach us with stealth, seeing us as prey that just hadn't realized it was dead yet. Gently I shifted the boy from my lap, and murmured reassuring words (cursing Ragou's memory, rot his bones) when he woke up-_

_-a gentle hand, cool against my skin, brushing away the hair sticking to my sweaty forehead-_

_-glass was cool against my temple, watching the headlights of cars approaching from the opposite direction and zip past us. The scenery rolling by out the window was stark black and eerie white as the light dusting of snow glowed in the starlight._

_The van pulled over to the side of the road, I didn't recognize the area after we'd been driving wherever for the past hour. Looking around, I saw no buildings or parking lots or any sign of people, not even other traffic on the road._

_Everyone was getting out of the car, someone talking about hot chocolate in a thermos. "Why did we stop here?" I asked._

_"The leonids are tonight," a mature woman's voice (You're...who?) explained to me._

_"The what?"_

_"Look up." (Who are you?)_

_I was outside the car, obediently craning my neck back to look up at the sky. What a marvel! The velvet dark night sky with hundreds, thousands of stars crisp and clear. And every inch was streaked with shooting stars carving bright lines. No matter where you looked, you could easily see dozens, and each that fell was replaced by another almost before its light faded._

_It was awe inspiring, leaving a profound ache deep inside my heart, and I would never forget it._

_"How very touching," an insincere voice drawled._

_"Who was that?" I looked around, realizing that the others (familiar others...who were they?) were gone, along with the van. "Hello?"_

_"How easily you forget." The voice was at my side, but when I turned no one was there. "I should say I'm pleased to an extent, but otherwise it makes your troublesome tendencies all the more...troublesome."_

_"I know you..." I realized slowly, my thoughts whirling back through the dream fragments (dreams, they were dreams) back to my present, and hissed when I recognized the voice, "Nevys."_

_"So the tool does recall its master." Even spinning around in circles, moving as fast as I could, I just couldn't find him. Instead, the snow melted away, steaming upwards, until I was surrounded by a gray fog that blocked out the stars. "Good. I'd hate to think I'd done my work too well."_

_I swallowed. "So you are behind my memory loss. Like Verte said." Giving it up as a lost cause, I stopped trying to visually locate him and stood still. Not to mention, I no longer wanted to risk looking behind me. It was enough that I could feel a warm breeze from that direction and hear the faint susurrus of waves on a shore. "And now, apparently, you're riding around in my head and watching my dreams. Why?"_

_Fog began twisting on itself, becoming denser. Wary, remembering the last time that had happened in one of these "dreams," I began backpedaling away. The fog achieved solid mass, shape, pigmentation... "Because..." Nevys stood in front of me, striking an imperious pose with arms crossed over his chest. His spread open wings painted a shocking splash of orange and black in the fog. "You are my tool, and I will use you up completely."_

_"'Use me up' you say," I mirrored his posture, folding my arms over each other and standing with feet set apart confrontationally. Though a nagging memory of seeing a specialist on tv give an interview on body language whispered in the back of my head that my actions could also speak silently of insecurity. I shook the thought from my head and brought my focus back to the matter at hand. "I'll take that as tacit admission that you tried to have me killed."_

_He smirked, so smug it felt almost poisonous. "Does your wild allegation have any proof to support it?"_

_"But the dogs!" I practically shouted, "The fairy dogs that attacked me! They were yours-!"_

_"And the proof?" he reiterated._

_With doubt introducing itself to my angered convictions, the strength behind my half of the argument began crumbling. "Ve-Verte said..."_

_"'Verte said'," he repeated mockingly. "And you trust her words so implicitly, on the basis of such a short acquaintance?" His purple eyes narrowed. "The dogs you speak of could very well have been her own, or those of Alastor."_

_"That could be..." I grudgingly gave him the point, "But that doesn't mean they couldn't be yours!"_

_"You grasp at frayed threads, tool," he warned, not in the least impressed. "And with each strand you pull, my patience swiftly unravels."_

_I was treading on thin ice, as he'd so poetically informed me, but that didn't make either of our points less true. Nevys could be responsible for the dogs' attack, or he may not be. But in either case I'd already been wronged by him on multiple levels. I decided to take a little chance. "Yuri saw you," I lied, embellishing on the truth. "When you were talking with Ludwig in Nordopolica. About killing me."_

_The fairy man stared at me for a heartbeat, lines in his forehead becoming more defined as his frown deepened. Then his wings stirred the fog in the air as he semi jumped, semi flew the short distance between us. One hand grabbed a fistful of my hair at the roots, yanking my head to the side and back as he glared down at me. Down. Somehow, in the last five seconds, he'd gained a foot and then some in height._

_"Does it amuse you to insult my intelligence?" he snarled, eyes flashing violet, "Or have you truly deluded yourself into believing I'd fall for your transparent trap of words?" I was a bit too preoccupied with trying to pry away his fingers from my scalp to really even think of asking 'what the hell?' about either the random growth spurt or mood swing. Mood swing wasn't that much of a surprise, really, and his new height advantage probably had something to do with using the malleability of dreams to try and force a sense of dominance over me. Or just his ego slipping through._

_Nevys leaned down and hissed into my ear, "A consummate liar and tale teller you may be, but it is child's play to see through you. If your 'friend' Lowell had seen such a thing, you would have come to me with your griping and caterwauling long before, or have continued to keep the knowledge to yourself. A secret piece of knowledge to use as your trump at the time you would stand to profit most. Hnph," warm breath from his scornful laugh tickled my ear, "You know nothing, and bluff in the hopes of learning something."_

_Drawing in a shaky breath, I did my best to glare back at him from the corner of my eye. "I've been to Nordopolica twice, which you and your tracking system tattoo would know. Once weeks ago, and then just yesterday. By saying 'long since' you confirmed that the meeting with Ludwig was during that first time. Your words wouldn't make sense otherwise." I paused for a moment, call it dramatic effect or just giving him time to catch my meaning, I don't care which. "How would you know when that meeting happened, unless you were there?"_

_Nevys flung me away from him, as if touching me had burned him. I stumbled back, catching my balance before I fell. Or before I took a tumble through space, as I realized there was only air behind my heel. Again, I stood on a cliff with a sunset behind me, warm light playing on the bank of fog I yet faced. And Nevys, at the head of the fog, sneered at me. A strange smile twisted his mouth, not at all with pleasure or humor but with...a bitter sense of satisfaction? I wasn't sure what to make of it._

_"A mind, it has," he spoke condescendingly, "when it chooses to use it. If only it were not hellbent on playing with the distractions along the way..." He passed a hand over his face, smoothing a few stray strands of his pale blond hair back into place. "Enough of these petty games and evasions. While I could denounce your latest accusation as the groping of the blind through the dark, the prospect of perpetuating this tires me."_

_He turned on his heel and started walking away into the fog, his black dress shoes clacking with each step. "Verte may have confused your trail for you, but we both know that you yet dance in the palm of my hand. Run and hide if it pleases you, but everything you do, in living or in dying, will still serve me foremost of all." And the last sign of him, the vivid orange of his wings, was swallowed up by gray fog._

x x x

A low groaning rumble in my ears greeted me as I woke up. Groggy and confused, I lay still in bed (I was in a bed?) trying to label the sound I was hearing. A low sound, almost deep enough to be felt in my diaphragm, that rumbled and rolled on and on like a hill of boulders suddenly knocked loose. And underlaying it was a constant hiss, like sand slipping through a massive hourglass to count away the minutes. It was when an instant of light flashed, making me see dull red behind my yet closed eye lids, that I recognized it all for a thunder storm.

Lily's ministrations hadn't completely patched me up. The bodhi blastia she had used to heal me was a reject, it's formula too weak for any of the knights or nobles to consider it of much use. Somewhere along the way it had ended up in the possession of the lower quarter, and the people kept it as a community secret. With it Lily had been appointed something along the lines of the neighborhood's all purpose doctor.

My arm was no longer broken, but the ghost of the pain it had suffered still lingered. She'd told me to keep it in its sling a little longer, as a precaution, and not to engage in any strenuous activities that would put strain on either my arm or ribs. Nothing had been done about the fever, as far as my knowledge went, I'd been nearly out of it by the end of the treatments. The slightly damp cloth on my forehead suggested a more traditional method of care taken.

I rubbed my right hand across my eyes, then slid it up to wind the fingers through my tangled hair so that my palm rested on my forehead. The pressure as well as the cool touch on my skin felt good, calling to mind a similar sensation from earlier. _Lily did the same. It felt...really nice. Reassuring._ Lifting my hand up again, I stared at my own fingers, a pale shape in the dark. _I suppose my mother must have done the same, once upon a time..._

_...What did I dream? For some reason, all I can remember was the confrontation with Nevi-Nevys, I need to take him more seriously now- and bits of memories from since I met him. But there was something about stars?_

I let my hand drop again, resting on top of my closed eyes. _Not the important issue right now, other than that it seems to be yet more proof that Nevys is rewiring my brain or something. He denied that the dogs were his, but didn't give a great argument to disprove it. Didn't seem to really try that hard to either. If anything, I'd say he got worked up more because Verte was interfering and I wasn't being a good little mind slave._

Sitting up, wrapping my good arm around myself, I felt a shiver roll down my spine._ But if he has control over my memories, what else could he be doing in my head? Erasing my memories...changing my name...could he even change the way I think?_ A wash of fear crested in me,_ God, could he rebuild me into someone else entirely? Someone who knows and thinks only what he approves?_

_But then what will happen to me?_

The constant _shush_ing fall of rain and wind calmed slightly without dying completely. In the comparative quiet it became possible to hear a muffled snuffling somewhere nearby. Eager for the distraction, I looked around the darkened room while trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Not really comfortable with ignoring strange sounds in an unfamiliar environment, I slipped out from under the thin sheets and blanket of my bed.

Shivering when my bare feet touched the wood floor, I glanced down at myself to see I was wearing only a simple cotton shift, once probably white but now a faded gray, that left my legs bare from the knees down. _Chilly_. Someone had taken away my daggers and bodhi blastia hair clip, making me feel more vulnerable than I cared for. But if it made them more comfortable with leaving me alone...I doubted anything too dangerous for me to handle would get in here. I still had my hands, and could, I dunno, hit someone on the head with a lamp or anything else lying around if I needed to.

Padding on quiet feet across the room, floorboards creaking slightly under my weight, I reached the door and stood with head cocked, listening. The sound was in the hallway outside, not directly in front of my door (_thank God, don't need some weird "Here's Johnny!" scene_). Though rather than some deranged lunatic with an ax, it sounded more like a child was crying.

Opening the door a crack, I looked out. The set up of the inn reminded of some motels or apartment buildings back on Earth, where every individual room's front door is on a single open landing. And for this inn the doors were on the side farthest from the main street, all facing a nice little courtyard. Nice? Not nice, it was raining and the overhang above the landing had some leaky spots.

But besides observing that the rain was soaking the wood of the landing up to about a foot in front of my room, I saw a little girl in a pink nightgown, hair pulled up in two pig tails on the sides of her head, sitting with her back against one of the other doors. She was sniffling with her face buried in her arms, folded across her knees.

Intentionally allowing the door to squeak on its hinges as I opened it wider, shifting my weight on my feet so that the floor accompanied it with a groaning creak for good measure, I stepped out into the hall. The girl's head shot up, and she made a noise somewhere between a hiccup and a squeak when she saw me. She clutched a rag doll with floppy ears that she'd been holding even tighter, hiding her face behind its disproportionately large head.

"D-don' eat me, p-pwease!" she begged. "I'm sowwy I was a bad girl!"*

"What?" I'd been about to ask her what was wrong, and there we go, adding cannibal to the list of things people thought of me. _The people in the lower quarter aren't on _that_ bad of terms with the knights, are they?_

"T-Teddie says dat ghosts c-come ouwt, dey come ouwt and eat bad girls dat get ouwduv bed at night!" she sobbed. "B-but da thundur and lightenin' was scawy!" I tried not to frown or anything while deciphering the childish enunciation in order to figure out what the heck she was saying. _Little kids always sound as if they're talking around a mouthful of gum_. And once I _did_ catch up with her, I couldn't help a wondering shake of my head. _I'm a cannibal ghost now_.

But I decided I couldn't blame her. I looked a right mess, my hair a dark and snarled tangle that needed to be washed, skin paler than normal from the blood loss earlier, and the shapeless formerly white night shirt/dress would be spooky to see on the dark even if the weather was more favorable.

I knelt down in seiza on the floor, hoping that putting myself on her level would make me less frightening. "Don't worry, I'm not the type of ghost that eats little girls."

A big, watery eye peeped out from behind a floppy ear. "Yew don' eat dem?" There was another flash of lightning, making her flinch and hide her face again.

"Nope," I answered cheerfully. "Not a ghost at all, actually." The thunder from the last lightning bolt boomed and she whimpered. I scooted over until I sat next to her, tucking my nightshirt in around my legs. Holding up my good hand, I offered it for her examination. "See? You can't touch a ghost, but I'm solid."

For awhile, it seemed like she was going to just keep hiding behind her doll. There was another flash, outlining her trembling little figure, before her round eyes rose up above the doll's head again. Her small hand reached out until her fingers poked at my palm. "Id's cold," she informed me, with all the seriousness of a child making a profound observation.

"Yeah," I agreed, "Nights like this are for sleeping in bed. So what are you doing out here?"

"Mama's sick," she sniffled, nose sounding a bit stuffed up, "Miss Lilly says Mama's con-tay-juice, and Teddie's Mama, she made me a bed hewre. An' I'm s'ppossed to stay, to stay until Mama's feewin' bettuh." A moment to translate that in my head while another crash of thunder sent her cowering behind her toy guardian again. "But it's _scawy_, an' _lowd_, an' Mama's not _hewre_ to make it bettuh!"

I nodded, then levered myself up until I was standing again (not as easy to do as I would have liked). "Come on, sweetie," I leaned down and offered my hand to her, "Let's get you back to bed, where the bad ghosts won't come for you." Her small hand squeezed mine tightly, and she timidly led me down the hallway to a third room. I wondered in passing who's room she'd been sitting in front of.

Tucking her back into bed, I tried to keep up a soothing but happy demeanor. "There, this is better, isn't it? Not cold or wet, and these blankets will keep the ghosts away. Feeling better?"

"Mmm," she nodded, pulling the blankets up to her nose. But then there was more thunder, and with a little "eek!" she pulled the blankets over her head. I sighed, and patted the mound of blankets where her head should be.

"What does your mother usually do when there's a storm?" I asked. Really, what worked with little kids that wouldn't sleep? I couldn't remember any personal experiences to draw from, if I had any similar to begin with.

"Mama sings me to sweep." The bundle of child and blanket shifted. "Will yew sing fo me?"

_...Ah. Well, that's an easy solution, I suppose. I don't even know how long it would take her to get to sleep if I were to tell her a bedtime story_. "I guess I could," I felt my cheeks heating up, "Though I'm sorry it won't be the same as when your mother sings for you, but at least I know a few lullabies." I found a chair and pulled it up by her bedside so I could sit down, patting her on the head again as I did so.

Then, feeling a touch grateful that she was still hiding under her blankets so I wouldn't end up feeling quite so self conscious, I began humming the intro of what I personally considered the most calming lullaby I'd ever heard. The melody was short and very repetitive, but that served to give it a hypnotic effect that was meant to promote sleep.

Keeping my voice soft, barely audible over the rain, I shifted from humming the tune to vocalizing it. The song I knew had no words, only a sweet, motherly voice singing in soothing sounds. It was a spontaneous whim that had me weave words into the melody.

_"Close your eyes,  
Close your eyes,  
Sleep until the dawn  
Rain and wind shall pass  
Thunder will calm_

_"Go to sleep,  
Go to sleep,  
Day will come again  
Sleep and dream of dancing  
In the morning Sun"_

I kept it up in that vein for awhile, occasionally switching from improvised lyrics to wordless crooning. Not sure how long it would take, or how long I had even been singing for, I slowly lifted up the edge of the blanket and folded it back. A cherubic face was revealed, cheek pressed against the doll (not a rag doll like I'd thought, but a rabbit like plush toy that had been worn threadbare by years of unconditional love) and a small thumb stuck in her mouth. She looked relaxed and peaceful, her breathing deep and even.

Standing up, I stretched my muscles as far as I dared, making a face at the twinges in my mended bones. Tiptoeing out of the room, I glanced back only once when I reached the door to make sure the girl hadn't woken up again. She slept on blissfully.

Quickly crossing down the hall, not wanting to linger outside in the rain heavy breeze any longer than necessary, I was forced to hesitate momentarily while I tried to figure out which was mine. Fortunately, mine was the only one still open ajar. It was the second down from the outdoor stairway to the ground floor. The door the girl had been sitting at was the one right next to the stairs. _...Isn't that Yuri's room? Huh. Wonder if he's the "go to" guy for all the impressionable little kids around here_.

A slackness came to my face. _Not my business to pry. Don't I know more than my fair share already?_ Remembering the incredulous expressions of Yuri and Flynn in Nordopolica, and how Yuri's had become one of fear and suspicion... I may not have told them my full secret yet, not in so many words, but that had probably been the true moment of revelation. And, whatever may come later, in that moment I had been rejected.

Loosing a resigned sigh, I slipped back into my own room. _But I still promised to explain... I suppose I'll still have to,_ if_ I can meet up with them again_. And if Chase hadn't already covered that lesson as the substitute teacher, though I'd probably have to go over it myself either way before they'd be satisfied. _Hmph, hope they rake him over the coals with their talk. I still don't want to forgive him...even if I can understand a little..._

The specifics of the conflict between the fairies and the purpose of the heirloom they were squabbling over may have been largely a mystery to me, but it was certain that Chase was neck deep in all of it. Regardless of how much he told the others, he'd still have plenty to answer for once I got ahold of him. _Like how Verte fits into this mess now. I'm getting the vibe that she and Nevys represent the conflicting sides._

Crawling back into my own bed, I curled up on my side and stared at the wall. _Alastor, and apparently this Sybelle, don't seem as...forward, in their methods. What have they done, really, besides follow me around and get on my nerves? Nothing but steal my wallet. The mess in Ragou's place was as much my fault as anyone else's. But if their goal is the same as Verte's, why didn't they make a more decisive move like she did? Or...are they up to something else?_

I watched as the occasional flash lit up the room, casting a silhouette of my reposed form on the otherwise blank wall like a black and white picture. _What do I do now? I'm terrified of what Nevys is doing to me, I don't trust Verte's intentions for me, and I don't understand what Chase and his group are planning. I don't have enough reliable information to figure out what's going on with all of them...or am I just making excuses now? _If I knew the reasons behind their actions, I wouldn't be able to just go with the flow anymore. I'd have to decide my own course for once, and choose one side over the other.

_...Sorry Yuri, guys, I think I've been lying to all of us, including myself, this whole time. The truth is, I don't even know what I want anymore._

x x x

When next I woke it was light out. The door to my room opened, triggering ingrained habits that roused me enough to crack my eyes open and peer muzzily at the intruder.

A passingly familiar older woman stood in the doorway. She invaded my personal space without a second thought, coming in and shucking me from the bedding I'd burrowed into. Clucking disapproval at my bedraggled appearance she gathered me up in her momentum and shooed me out of the room. Brain still half asleep, I felt like I'd left it behind on my pillow as I was herded down to the other end of the building in only my nightclothes.

The human whirlwind of a woman had me in a bathing room and full tub of hot water before you could say "mortified," and then bustled off again leaving the "promise" (threat?) that she'd be back. I was left to soak and wonder what had just happened. It seemed wise, though, to wash up quick. If she came back before I was finished, I wouldn't put it past her to scrub me down herself.

It was while I was in the bath that I made another discovery of unsettling implications. My left hand, the one marked with Nevys' tattoo, had picked up another mark. His mark had seemed like an abstraction of either a butterfly or a four petaled flower, its lines spread across the entire back of my hand to my wrist and shifting through a spectrum of the dark colors. But now the colors had become flat black, and green lines with stylized leaves erupted from a single point on my wrist to twine through the black mark and around my wrist itself, like I'd been tattooed with a bracelet.

The color and vine motif gave a pretty good clue who was responsible. It also, perhaps, explained what Nevys had been going on about when he claimed that Verte had done something to cover my trail. Did that mean he wouldn't be able to send more dogs after me? But we were still connected, the dream proved that much. Groaning, I dunked my head under the water. _If I get out of this, I don't ever want to get caught up in the faes' power struggles again_. With that despondent resolution in mind, I grabbed the soap and started working up a lather to get the rest of the clotted blood and dried sweat out of my hair.

I finished just in time too, having just rinsed off and started to gingerly towel myself when the hurricane innkeeper returned (yeah, by that time I'd woken up enough to remember she was the owner that Lily had talked to the night before. If her name had been given, I'd forgotten it already). This time her arms were full of neatly folded clothes. "If they're a mite big on you, I won't be surprised," she said while shaking out what proved to be a light blue (color only slightly washed out) dress and holding it up below my chin to judge approximate fit. "Nothing a belt and a few pins in the right spots won't fix. Now, Miss Owie, do you need any help getting dressed?"

"No, I can manage, but-" I blinked, mind belatedly registering something, "I'm sorry, _what_ did you call me?"

The woman's smile made about five years fall away from her appearance. "Little Lia's been calling you that all morning. Although, she's actually saying 'Owia,' or some such, but the older children say that's close enough." Apparently already impatient with my progress in getting dressed (I'd only just taken the clothes from her, hoping she'd step out and give me some privacy...), she took back the white blouse I'd been provided and held it up for me to put my arms through. "Most likely what she's trying to say is 'Aria,' or that's what the rest of us think."

"Aria?" I repeated, further baffled by this explanation. "Miss Owie" would almost make sense, in a sad, sad way given my state on arrival, but "Aria?" _Isn't that for opera?_ But...I blushed as I realized I could probably guess who "little Lia" was, and how she might have started associating musical terminology with me.

"Yes," the woman finished buttoning up the blouse and then began helping me get the dress on over my head. I hadn't accounted for how raising my left arm up too high would hurt. "Catherine, she's Lia's mother, you know, she always did have a fascination with the finer things. The things that only the nobles have the time and money to enjoy." Her animated chattering led me to guess that the woman was a lover of gossip, and would probably keep talking for as long as someone was around to listen. "Lia's been growing up on all the bits of song and theater her ma tells her about, and takes to it like a spark to fire. Like mother, like daughter!"

"Mmhmm," I inserted, guessing that was all the input I was expected to give. Just enough to make it sound like I cared. The clothes really were too big, the blouse's collar, sleeves, and cuffs all hanging looser than intended. The neckline of the dress was probably lower than on its original owner too. A belt did serve to gather the excess material at the waist in, but having the long skirt swishing around my ankles gave me the feeling that I'd trip over it anytime. "Er, not to be rude, but I wouldn't have minded if you had some men's clothes to spare..."

She brought out a needle and thread from...somewhere. "Beggars can't be choosers, especially not when they're getting handouts from humble folk in parts like these," she said jovially enough, though I kicked myself. _Mega duh_. Turning around meekly at her gesture, I stood still as she adjusted the straps of the dress, shortening them so that it didn't hang quite so low. "Now then, all cleaned and dressed. All that's left is to get some good warm food in you, and then there's a pair who'll be wanting to have a friendly talk."

"Really?" I shifted the belt, trying to get the folds of cloth trapped under it to lie a bit more comfortably. I missed the accustomed weight of weapons strapped around my hips. "Who would want to talk to me?"

"Well, Hanks and Nolan had some questions they wanted to ask you, and Lily may drop by to knock their heads together." At my look of confusion, she clarified, "Hanks is the old fossil who can actually gets things done around here, and Nolan is more protective than a father meeting his only daughter's boyfriend." Well, I already knew who Hanks was, not that she'd know, but now I could guess that the other guy at the fountain was Nolan. "Now get a move on, Miss Aria, or Lily will be having words with me about letting one of her patients turn to skin and bones!"

I was tucked away in a corner table down in the inn's main room. Becca, the innkeeper and mother of Ted, wouldn't serve me any solid foods (Lily's orders) but gave me plenty of porridge and milk. Yup, milk. I let little soundbites of a raging Edward Elric refusing to drink his milk play in my head in order to ignore the fact that all of the tables closest to me were conspicuously avoided. But even if all the other patrons avoided me like a leper, their eyes kept glancing in my direction as they all whispered to each other over their late breakfasts and early lunches.

Until one person was brash enough to greet the outsider who'd come in knight's clothing. At my elbow stood a boy around Karol's age (probably a year or two younger?), with tousled brown hair, a striped shirt, and a shy brown pigtail poking out from behind his back. He genially stuck out a hand, "My name's Ted, you might remember me from yesterday."

Bemused, I shook his hand in return, internally trying to reconcile the adult mannerisms with the childish appearance. "Pleased to meet you properly," I politely said, though I left out my own half of the introduction.

He waited until it was clear that I didn't plan to share my name, and then turned so I could see the little pigtail girl hiding behind him, one hand fisted in the back of his shirt. "This is Ophelia, though everyone just calls her Lia. Mum and I watch her for her mum sometimes, but she wakes us up every time she can't sleep." Here he rubbed the back of his head a bit sheepishly, looking a bit more his age, "I tried making up a story about ghosts last time to make her stop, but that didn't work out so well."

"But Yewi said it was twoo!" the little girl objected a bit angrily. I choked slightly trying not to laugh out loud.

"Anyway," Ted doggedly continued after he managed to calm down the indignant Ophelia, "I just wanted to say thanks for looking after her last night, Miss Aria."

"Don't mention it," I was quick to say, "Just, could you call me something else?"

"Oh," his eyes widened innocently, "Certainly, Miss Owie."

"Aria will be fine..."

Not long after that Hanks and a man in overalls, who I assumed must have been Nolan, arrived. Nolan was average height, had a square cut jaw and slightly crooked nose, and was fairly well muscled with little excess flab other than the suggestion of what could one day be a beer belly at his stomach. His hair was cut short, nearly to the scalp, so that his head looked covered in dark bristles. Most of it was hidden under a bandanna stained past the point of telling its original color. I had the impression that he was a man given to manual labor for the better part of the day, and to a good strong drink in a bar during his hours off.

Ted had been called away by his mother to help out in the kitchen, and I'd been watching her bursting in and out of the doors all over. It was a bit like a cartoon when the character takes one door and seconds later comes out another on the other side of the hallway. And Becca always had a load of something she was carrying, be it laundry to be washed, laundry to be folded, or dishes she had just cleared away. Prime case of a woman aging before her time because there weren't enough hours in the day for all the work to be done.

It was when a chair scraped across the floor that I realized the two men had joined me. "You're certainly looking better," Hanks started off. "Yesterday you looked closer to the grave than I am!"

"I wouldn't say that doesn't still hold true," I quipped wryly, "Seeing how my luck's been running out on me in the worst ways lately." That got a chuckle out of the elderly man, but Nolan scowled.

"And just what are you going to do if your bad luck follows you here?" he demanded. "Folk here have enough to worry about just getting by without outside trouble."

Hanks was unappreciative of his companion's bald accusation. "Now, Nolan, there's no call for that."

"No call my ass," the younger man scoffed, "this one has all the signs of a troublemaker on the run."

"It's alright," I assured Hanks, "I perfectly understand. In fact," I leaned forward on the table and stared Nolan in the eye, "I can tell you this right now. I doubt my trouble will follow me here, but if it does? I'll smack it across the room myself and leave with it."

The man met and held my stare with his own flinty glare for a slow moving minute. Then one side of his mouth rose up in a grin. "I'll hold you to that," he promised.

"Well, now that we all understand each other," Hanks diffused the remaining tension, "care to tell us who you are and what you're doing here, young lady?"

Falling back against my chair again, I sighed at the return of the basic matters of interest. _I don't think I've given anyone a satisfactory answer to those questions yet_. "If I knew my name, I'd tell you. Right now it doesn't much matter to me what anyone calls me, but it seems I've been named 'Aria' for the duration." Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the nearby tables suddenly had occupants that hadn't been there five minutes before, several covering their mouths with their hands to stifle sniggers. Seemed the compulsion to eavesdrop was stronger than small town (in a manner of speaking) wariness.

"As for why I'm here, well, not much reason other than to make sure my arm didn't fall off." I shrugged my right shoulder. "So...I guess right now I'm just waiting for someone I know..." I trailed off at the end. My feasible options were limited, either I could find work and earn a paycheck to support myself with, or I could wait for Verte to come back like she'd said she would. Or for Nevys to beat her to it. And really, they all amounted to the same unless the first choice resulted in a sudden windfall that could be used to supply and run off before either fairy came. "...For someone I know to come pick me up."

Hanks cleared his throat with a "harrumph!" before folding his hands on the table and giving me a stern "I will know when you lie" look. "Would that someone happen to be Yuri Lowell?"

Whispers erupted at the other tables, people practically stretching their ears to catch every word. I knew my own expression must have betrayed me, since I foolishly hadn't been expecting that. Therefor, I opted for the most truthful story. "I do know Yuri, yes, and I'm even aware that he grew up here. But we've...taken our separate paths. I don't expect him to be in these parts for awhile anyway."

The room's overall response was disappointed, but Hanks and Nolan nodded. "The boy's doing well, though, right?" Nolan asked.

"Driving the knights up the wall every day," I confirmed with a straight face, "and coincidentally helping out other people each time he's at it."

Nolan smacked a hand on the table with a guffaw, "Same as ever then!"

x x x

Lily did drop by, gave me a quick check up, and then practically threw me through Becca's kitchen door. By her reasoning I was well enough to do simple chores and thereby I should pull my weight by washing dishes for my hostess. I decided it would be better for my continued health if I took her professional "advice."

Ophelia sat on the floor watching me, rabbit-like plush in her lap (whatever creature it was supposed to be was naggingly familiar) and thumb in her mouth. "Miss Owia," she said around her hand, "Sing anudder song?" Plates clattered against each other as I added another to the stack. I looked back over my shoulder while reaching for the next dirty one.

"Maybe later. I don't sing very often." More often than I would admit though.

"But yew were, yew were hummin' eawier." Because the kid had been bored enough to sit on that kitchen floor for the past hour, scooting out of people's ways as if she had a sixth sense to know when someone was about to step on her. And I'm less guarded about my humming than my singing.

"That's different."

"Pwease?" she gave me puppy eyes. Huge, shining, watery puppy eyes. _Dammit, kids play dirty_. "Whud wewre yew hummin'?"

I sighed, recognizing defeat. "Another lullaby. You wouldn't be able to understand this one," definitely not. Not because it was complicated, but because it was Swedish. Or Polish. I kept forgetting which. "Hmm, it'd be a hack job, but I can try and translate it."

_"Byssan lull, koka kittelen full,  
där kommer tre vandringsmän på vägen..."_

I sang through the first verse, more to remind myself of what it was about. It wasn't a language I was familiar with, but I could remember approximately what each line meant. I followed up by singing the same verse in English, not exact but as close as I could remember while getting it to fit with the melody.

_"Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three wanderers are coming.  
Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three wanderers are coming.  
The first has a limp  
The second one is blind  
The third has such tattered clothing"_

Pleased, I worked my way through the rest of the song in the same manner. All the while I steadily worked with my forearms in the soapy water, baggy sleeves rolled up past my elbows.

_"Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three stars are shining in the sky.  
Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three stars are shining in the sky.  
The first one is white  
The second one is red  
The third is the bright yellow moon._

_"Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three winds are blowing on the seas.  
Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three winds are blowing on the seas.  
From o'er the great ocean  
And the little Skagerrak,  
And up from the gulf of Bothnia._

_"Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three ships are sailing in the harbor.  
Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
three ships are sailing in the harbor.  
The first one is a barque  
The second is a brig  
The third has such tattered sails._

_"Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
in the chest there are three treasures.  
Byssan lull, boil the kettle full,  
in the chest there are three treasures.  
The first one is our truth  
The second is our hope  
The third is the red passion of love."_

"Sing anudder! Anudder song!" Ophelia squealed, but I snapped my head to the common room door suspiciously. _I thought I heard it..._ Shaking my head, I looked back down at Lia. She'd migrated across the floor in order to hug my leg and give me another taste of the puppy eyes.

"Nope," I declined, prepared this time for the little beggar and her pout, "Don't want to lose my voice. Why don't you go find Teddie Bear?" The nickname was, admittedly, too easy and childish. But that's what the cheeky brat got for the "Miss Owie" thing.

"Okay," she mumbled dejectedly. Leaving was a whole theatric production of getting up off the floor and brushing her dress off, scooping up her toy to finally flounce out the door. How childhood dramatized even the smallest slight...

Alone in the kitchen, the lunch rush over and the dinner rush some time off, I was finally able to finish washing all the dishes. _Jeez, it felt like they'd set up a conveyor belt to keep bringing me new ones to wash for awhile there_. With a rag I mopped up the counter top, cleaning the sudsy spills and swiping off bits and crumbs into my other hand to throw out. Tired as I was of dish washing, being even a little productive made me feel better than just sitting in my room, waiting until I was back in top health and form.

The rest of that day at the inn was spent on more chores and errands. At one point I asked Becca if I could borrow a sewing needle and some blue thread to try and mend the uniform I'd borrowed from Sarah, and she very happily gave me what I needed. Along with a basket full of clothes she hadn't yet found the time to fix up. Not eager to sit alone in my room, I set myself up at my corner table again with the basket next to my chair.

At first, I was treated to more of that "island in a sea of solitude" phenomenon while the tables around me were avoided, but curiosity won out in the end. A few daring souls would take the other seats at my table and ask me for news of the world outside Zaphias. The empire didn't always see fit to keep its people updated on current events.

Leaving out my own role in everything, I chatted about whatever came to mind. Halure's barrier failing, the people being protected by Flynn's brigade (and a number of people began pridefully boasting about how they'd always had _known_ their Flynn would do well) and the barrier getting fixed again. About Ragou's corruption in Capua Nor, and how a joint effort between Flynn and Yuri (twice as much pride) uncovered his shady hobbies and the crazy weather blastia in basement, but had to ruefully admit the magistrate hadn't been punished at the time. And in the process the two lower quarter men had found and rescued the throne candidate Ioder. (Maybe I shouldn't have shared that last part? Oh well, too late.)

I told them about the trouble in Dahngrest when Leviathan's Claw had sabotaged the barrier, about Flynn almost inadvertantly starting a war with a forged letter but preventing it from getting too far out of hand by recovering the real one. The part about Phaeroh attacking I glossed over, only vaguely saying that a huge monster had, for reasons unknown, attacked the city. And that the Heracles had been used to chase it off.

Flynn had been the champion in the Nordopolica coliseum; I only told them that was a rumor that may or may not be true. I left out the news about the blockade in the Weasand...and the fact that Ragou and Cumore were respectively dead and "missing." I didn't mention anything at all about the fiasco with both the knights and the Hunting Blades attacking and killing Belius. It wasn't just because I wanted to distance myself from those unwelcome memories, but I didn't have the heart to give these people the details about the failings of their local heroes. Revealing those parts would have made it obvious that I couldn't have known so much unless I'd been there in person.

But no one seemed to notice any of the inconsistencies that were still present in my stories. All the talk about Yuri and Flynn had loosened their tongues and brightened their tempers, so that they in turn began regaling me with stories about those two's youth. I felt like I was going to die from laughter when I heard that, not only did Yuri have a crush on a woman fourteen years older than him when he was younger, but that just _happened_ to be _Lily_.

Until she scared the crap out of him (and most other young men with their eyes on her) by punching out a patient that refused to stay in bed and then healing those new wounds along with the old ones. And, one sly eyed old man told me, that patient had actually been Nolan. Which was why he rarely ever won an argument against her, though he never stopped trying.

It felt a bit...uncomfortable, hearing all these anecdotes. About how Flynn had fallen into the river, how he and Yuri would be practically joined at the hip some days and then refused to talk to each other for entire weeks, how everyone would know when they'd made up when they'd start wrestling each other in the streets (Flynn always won, though some of those victories were debatable, being the result of luck and happenstance), about them sharing a sword and trying to teach themselves to fight... I felt like I didn't have the right to know all that stuff, on top of all the other information I'd brought with me from Earth. From knowing the game. If Yuri knew that I was learning all this stuff about him from the people who'd been there to see it, maybe it wouldn't bother me. But he didn't, and I did feel bothered.

Sighing, I looked out the window of my room, down to the branch of the river flowing by the street outside. "I'm an idiot, aren't I?" I murmured. "It doesn't really matter, does it? Embarrassing childhood stories...aren't on the same level as the secrets I already know." But there was no helping my nosediving feelings. _If only I...if only I could start over again, or something. I've gone and made a mess out of my life, and don't see what path can bring me out of it again..._

x x x

"Lullaby For You" by Tron Syversen (little hard to find, here's a link to one of the few youtube videos I can find with it: www .youtube .com/watch? v=btKCz2VmCTE&feature ), words came from the top of my head.

"Byssan Lull" is a Swedish folksong, its currently popular lyrics are attributed to Evert Taube. There are some variations from version to version (like the last line in the first verse being about a man who can't speak, instead of one with tattered clothing). I apologize to people who understand the language and can tell where I got something wrong or purposefully tweaked it a bit. The version I favor (and hear Letha singing to in my head, though I only included her singing her English version) is by Peter LeMarc. www .youtube .com/watch?v =5CgVjI-LiiY&feature

*Translation for little Ophelia's childspeak:

"Don't eat me please! I'm sorry I was a bad girl!"  
"Teddie says that ghosts come out, they come out and eat bad girls that get out of bed at night!"  
"But the thunder and lightning was scary!"  
"You don't eat them?"  
"It's cold."  
"Mama's sick. Miss Lilly says Mama's contagious, and Teddie's Mama, she made me a bed here. And I'm supposed to stay, to stay until Mama's feeling better."  
"But it's _scary_, and _loud_, and Mama's not _here_ to make it better!"  
"Mama sings me to sleep. Will you sing for me?"  
"But Yuri said it was true!"  
"Miss Aria? Sing another song?"  
"But you were, you were humming earlier."  
"What were you humming?"  
"Sing another! Another song!"


	57. Chapter 57: Aria

__*Sighs* Well that took awhile. I'm sorry it took nearly another month again. Originally I didn't think I'd get anything up before Christmas, I had so much to do for presents and parties and such, but I had planned to crank out writing after the festivities were over. Then on Christmas we found out my grandma passed away overnight. Kinda...made the motivation to write sputter out after each paragraph.

Well, that was a few weeks ago, and I've gotten a hold of myself again. Grandma was a sweet, sweet lady that everyone liked, but she'd been going downhill for the last few years. Now we're just glad that she can rest peacefully.

And now moving on from the somber news...

After the last round of reviews, I'm curious. Are there any RavenxLetha shippers out there? I've only one person fess up to that. I know a lot of people like their interactions, but hmmm?

And omakes got pushed back because of various reasons, but I'm still going to do my best to write them.

Angelic:

"Not so secretly" because that writer knows very well how I've taken a shine to that pairing, for the humor value if nothing else. Constantly sends me messages about the latest bunny that popped into her mind, which kicks off hours of fangirlish giggling. Al is usually amused, and sometimes incredibly unamused by all this.

Whew, well obviously the contest thing didn't go anywhere, but I am going to write the omake requests I got. I've some vague ideas about yours, so we'll have to wait and see what that turns into.

For now, enjoy more of confused Letha. Bon appetit.

x x x

Chapter 57: Aria

x x x

At first I'd been afraid to look closely at my left arm. Inspecting my hand and wrist in the bath was one thing, the elaborate fairy tattoos were a fascinating enough draw to my attention that I could ignore the rest of my arm, but that _had_ been the limb a Cù Sìth had chomped on hard enough to break. My arm should have looked totally messed up, right? But Lily had clicked her tongue at my squeamishness when giving me one more check up that morning. "I work with what I've got," she'd said, "and used nearly all of that on your arm and ribs. You can hardly tell anything was wrong with them now."

Indeed, I could breath as deeply as ever with no pain from my ribs. With that encouraging example of the doctor's ability bolstering my nerve I checked my arm to get it over with. True to her word the visible marks were very faint, noticeable only if you knew to look for them (or had some reason to stare at my arm for ages). If I ran my fingers along the skin I could feel the haphazard lines of raised and oddly smooth skin, but overall it was nothing too jarring to my aesthetic sensibilities. Not when considering the alternative mangled look I had envisioned.

"Wow," I admired her handy work. "But what about the others?"

Tugging the loose collar of my unbuttoned shirt aside, I nearly put a crick in my neck trying to look down at my own shoulder and collarbone. Running along the bone in an annoyingly unparallel line was the old scar from that time when the Red-eyes had ambushed and kidnapped me for a lark (thank you, Verte). It was a faint pink that nevertheless stood out on my pale never-holds-a-good-tan skin, and now had been joined by a new friend.

The bite from the fairy dog was a jagged oval, one end curving down the front of my right shoulder-overlapping with the older, clean cut scar-while the other end stood out clearly on the back of my shoulder blade. My right calf and left ankle sported more circular scars to match. And if I hadn't known better I'd have believed the wounds were almost as old as the Red-eyes scar. But there was such a puzzling gap in how obvious they were compared to the one on my arm. "How come these are still here?" I asked curiously, tracing the bite on my shoulder with a thumb.

"There's only so much a body can do, even with a blastia's help," she told me while carefully wrapping up her bodhi blastia, a clunky looking ring, in a handkerchief before stowing it away in a pocket. "If a good blastia with a formula compatible for healing is used right away, the injury can be repaired as good as new. Gels were researched and developed with the same outcome in mind." At her nod I hopped off my bed, slowly stretching my arms and then legs, reveling in the lack of pain. "But that's with the best of the best, with no delay. If you go wandering off all scatterbrained for a day like you did-don't argue, I can tell!-before getting treatment, of course the results aren't going to be pretty!"

The stern healer wagged a finger at me in admonishment. "The body will have already started trying to heal naturally, and healing formulas can't undo the process. When I was healing you, I started by putting all of my effort and energy into fixing your arm and ribs. Most of the work there was the result of the blastia. Gut for the rest it was more like I gave your own natural regeneration a kick in the rear to get it going.

"But having another scar to deal with would be the least of your worries. In the worst cases I've seen infections or the like would have already set in, and there's nothing for it then! Not much blastias can do for an ill patient. Or for a broken bone that wasn't set correctly and began to heal wrong. Or for-" she continued rattling off unpleasant things that could happen with improper first aid and blastia use, but I wasn't entirely listening anymore.

I'd never guessed before that using aer to heal a person was such a complicated process! Estelle made it seem so easy, even if it tired her out at times. And both Karol and Raven had their own artes that did some minor healing. _Then again,_ I mused while pulling the mostly mended knight uniform back into my lap,_ I've never seen the guys use those abilities outside of battle. So only a few minutes would have passed between getting injured and them healing it. And the worst stuff was always taken care of with either Estelle's powers or some gels._

_Not to mention all the injured people she comes across in towns that she heals right away_. Thinking back on which...I couldn't remember any of those people suffering worse than maybe a scar like my older one after the princess was done with them. Maybe her gift for healing was far more impressive than I ever gave her credit for. And probably, if that were the case, it had to do with her identity as the Child of the Full Moon.

_Ironic that the I, the person from the magic barren Earth, took magical healing for granted_. I deftly threaded a needle and tied off the end. Over the past two days I'd managed to fix up the worst of the damage I'd done to Sarah's uniform, and it would only take an hour or so of my morning to finish off the easier tears. I couldn't do much to hide the fact that it had gone through rough times, but they say it's the thought that counts.

Lily tilted her head and cocked her hip to the side, one hand resting on it. "You know, whoever the Knight is that gave you that uniform? She may never bother to wear it again anyway. It looks like it's been half way to hell."

"I know," I mumbled, careful of the two pins I'd removed from the fabric as I sewed. No pincushion was handy, so for the moment I held them by biting on the ends gently. On the bottom of my left foot there's a scar from little child me learning to keep better track of her sewing needles and pins. That was one memory I wouldn't mind if Nevys erased... "But at least I'll know that I tried. I think she'd appreciate that at least."

"Hmm," Lily was still watching me work. "That color... That uniform is from the unit our Flynn joined, isn't it?" I nodded. The older woman sighed, leaning back against the wall. "And now he's the Captain..."

Silence stretched out between us, her lost in thought as I methodically put stitch after stitch into a sleeve. "When they were boys," Lily suddenly said, making me look up. Her eyes were soft, with a distance to them. Like she was looking far far away, far back down the years. "Yuri and Flynn both had a strong sense of right and wrong. Not surprising, Finath Scifo was an upright and outstanding Knight. Both of those boys looked up to him."

A nostalgic smile touched her lips. "We all looked up to him. A man, come from the lower quarter and carving a place for himself in the upper tiers of society. But he didn't forget us, Finath did everything he could to fight for the lower quarter." She blinked, gaze returning to the room and me. "You have reason to thank him too. He was the one who got us this," she patted the pocket her bodhi blastia rested in.

Then she sighed. "After he died we were all worried about Flynn. He'd admired his father so much, but suddenly he hated to hear anyone talk about him. And then he and his mother had to move out of their house..." Lily's eyes had looked away again. "One would have thought he'd be proud of how his father died in duty, putting the welfare of others before himself. But it made him bitter, and he devoloped what could almost be called an obsession with following the rules and laws."

"I've noticed," I couldn't help remarking wryly. Then I wished I hadn't, "Er, sorry...that was a bit..."

She shook her head. "It's alright. He and Yuri would get in terrible fights over it back then. Flynn would get worked up about something Yuri had done, and Yuri would get angry and call him 'a bossy nag', among even worse names. They spent less time together and, after the Scifos moved to another part of the quarter on the other side of the city, they stopped seeing each other entirely. Only a few of us in this neighborhood kept in touch with them."

My undivided attention was on Lily as I stopped sewing. "It was a bit of a surprise when they both applied for the Knights at the same time. It didn't seem very like Yuri, and some of us thought Flynn resented the Knights after what happened to his father," she continued, with the fondness of a mother telling stories about her children. (Looked like poor Yuri never had a chance with his crush.) "Neither had known that the other had joined until they were actually assigned to Nylen's brigade together in another town.

"We're not all that clear on what happened there, but Yuri came back a civilian and Flynn had...relaxed again, for want of a better word. He still believed that following the rules was the best course, but began to actively look for ways the law could be upheld without unfairly punishing criminals. Like with that one lad who stole a bag of grain from a shady merchant to feed his starving family. He punished the boy with community service, distributing the grain cheap among us while the merchant was locked up for stealing from the royal granaries."

Blowing an exasperated breath, Lily added, "And Yuri would freely break any rule that was getting in the way of someone's well being. Even going as far as to throw the tax collector into the river and tell him, 'Come back when it actually makes sense to give the rich nobles our money'."

"That sounds just like them," I laughed, rubbing a hand across watering eyes. "But Lily, why are you telling me this?"

"You seem to have known both of them," she pointed out, making me squirm a bit. I'd given information about myself only grudgingly, but (not counting the night I'd arrived) I'd stayed in the inn two full days and nights, talking with the patrons and doing what cleaning and odds jobs I could manage. An astute woman like Lily would have figured out that much easily, as Hanks and maybe Nolan likely had as well. "They're both good kids. Even if they don't always pick the best way of doing things, they have the right idea about wanting to make this world a fair place for us all. The Knights made a mistake letting Yuri go, but likewise did well to recognize Flynn's ability."

I looked away slightly. I knew that Yuri had chosen to leave on his own because the way the knights did things disappointed him. But, overall, I had to agree with the healer. She crossed the room and stood before me, placing one hand on the blue uniform in my lap. "Right now we don't trust very many of the Knights. We've had enough experience with the bad ones, like Cumore and most of his men. And we know that many are busy enough that, even though they're decent folk, they tend to overlook us down here. But there's still fine men like Finath was in there. And women."

Lifting up the uniform so we could both look at it, I grinned. "Fine men and women indeed. Though this one seemed to enjoy living with her head in the clouds. Heaven only knows what kinda story she'll cook up on her own to explain how I ruined her spare clothes."

x x x

Spending a third day cooped up in the same building hadn't been very appealing, not after how I'd gotten so accustomed to being on the move, so with Becca's blessing (aka, tacit agreement to not sic Nolan on me for wandering around town on my own) I went out to explore a little more. I clunked out the door in oversized shoes, carrying in one hand an old basket with the folded uniform at the bottom and clutching in the other a quickly scrawled shopping list. With the whole afternoon ahead and an entire city to see I strolled along the streets without any sense of urgency.

The inhabitants of the lower quarter were still leery of my presence, conversations hushing and eyes following me as I passed by. Whatever gossip and speculation was circulating about me must not have been too bad, though, since the chatter would resume before long and the curious stares would find something else more interesting or important than me. I wasn't a familiar fixture of the neighborhood but apparently I'd been deemed harmless enough to be left to my own devices.

Yes, harmless enough without my fairy-flower-made daggers or blastia. I really wasn't sure what had been done with them, but judged it imprudent to ask.

I stopped in the street, frowning to myself as I read and reread the name on the sign. _This alphabet...it still doesn't feel natural to me. And it's so weird not to have reading come as naturally as breathing_. But the name matched the symbols written on Becca's instructions, so even if I misread it there shouldn't be a problem.

A bell jingled as I pushed open the shop's door. The place was filled with shelves laden with jars full of powders and leaves, packets stacked up in bundles, and baskets and barrels filled with unfamiliar (but presumably edible if correctly prepared) things. Pushed up against the walls were mismatched cupboards and drawers. I sniffed at the air and smiled faintly. _Mmm, nice. There's...cinnamon? Something sweet like vanilla... And something with a, I dunno, a sharper smell..._ Shrugging, I gave up. With my limited skills in the kitchen, I didn't have much chance of identifying many spices by scent alone, particularly not in a store full of them. _Repede would have an olfactory overload here_.

Before I could close the door something darted in through the gap between my legs and the door frame, startling me as it ran across my feet. "Oh!" I rocked back a step and caught sight of a coppery furred tail disappearing down one of the aisles. Curious, I stepped into the store fully and over to the aisle, looking down the line of shelves to the counter at the other end of the little shop. A long bodied cat with a chewed looking ear was slinking along in that direction. It gathered itself into a hunched position before springing up onto the wood counter.

"_Mreeowr!_" it yowled.

"There now..." a creaky old voice chuckled. A thin and wrinkled hand reached out from a blind spot created by the shelves and rubbed the cat behind the ears. "I was just wonderin' when it was you las' came by, Jericho." The cat bumped its orange head against the hand as it began purring. "An' didn' you bring somun' with you? Or are you clever enough to open doors now?"

"...Mrwowr," I called out. The copper orange cat turned to look at me with half closed eyes, sneezing in my direction.

A laugh that was uncomfortably like a witch's cackle came from the hand's direction. "I'll be, Jericho's brought a door openin' cat with 'im! Come 'ere, come 'ere!"

Face turning warm, I told myself it would be foolish to back out and run out the door. _Ah...that old game of mimicking cats... I shouldn't have gone and done it if I was gonna be embarrassed about it_. Slowly I crossed the store, following the same path as the cat Jericho. But when I came out of the aisle I stopped.

The wizened little old lady who was still stroking the cat was seated in a wooden chair by the counter. Her dress was black with fraying lace at the collar and cuffs, a crochet blanket lay spread across her knees. Gray hair was escaping from the bun on her head and a boil sat on her hooked nose. The classic fairy tale witch! But most shocking of all was her eyes. Her eyes were clouded, almost pure milky white. She was blind.

"Come now, Door Cat," she said, "Don' be shy. Or are you afeared of this old crone gumming you to death?" She smiled wickedly, revealing that several of her teeth were indeed missing.

"Wouldn't be the first time that's happened to me," I said with a slightly shaky voice. Clearing my throat, I tried to make up for that. "Though last time it was by a toothless old cat."

That won a laugh from her, another witch cackle that ended weakly with her gasping for her breath. Worried, I took a few more steps forward before halting. "A-are you okay?"

"Don' worry," she wheezed. "I'm not about to kick the bucket just yet." Getting herself back under control, the old woman leaned back into her chair. She'd withdrawn the hand from petting the cat on her counter, and now folded both on her lap. After taking a moment to just breathe, her head shifted a bit, turning so that her ear was more towards me. "Well then, is my guest goin' ta share 'er name, or are we goin' to keep on with this 'Door Cat' business?"

The name question again. Unhappy to face this issue again, I shifted onto one foot and clasped my hands behind my back. "I don't..."

As I hesitated, still unsure how to answer, the old woman cocked her head the other way, other ear now in her listening position. "Eh? A strange youn' thin' has wandered inna my store without 'er name, 'as she? You must be that 'Aria' lass I've heard some tell about."

I shrugged, saying with some indifference, "If that's what you want to call me."

The woman leaned forward onto her bony elbows a bit. "Meanin' iffin I wanted to, I could keep on callin' you 'Door Cat', is that it?"

With another shrug and a grin she couldn't see I said, "Myaow."

Jericho looked up from grooming his tail and meowed in turn, making the woman laugh again. To my relief, it was more of a chuckle that didn't push her over into a heart attack or something. She sighed and reached out one of her hands, beckoning in my direction. "Come here, come here, child." Obediently I stepped closer and took her hand to let her know when I was standing by her seat.

Her knobbly jointed fingers wrapped around mine, stroking across the back of my hand as if petting the cat again. I frowned in bewilderment at the feeling of familiarity the sensation brought.

_A hand, larger then my own, cradling mine and warming it. Idly the other stroked my hands as I basked in the borrowed body heat. The church was cold, the pews little better, because it was yet too early for the heater to turn on. We were waiting, watching the two women at the modest little organ. Their heads, one of curling white hair and the other with near black curls, were close together as they whispered over open hymnals. The the dark haired woman looked up, saw us watching, and smiled beautifully at her chil..._

_Children?_

"Such soft, smooth skin," the old woman crooned, "It's like I'm holdin' my daughter Alicia's 'ands agin." I blinked, seeing she was holding both my hands. Although the tattoo was clear on my hand in stark black and green lines, her fingers brushed across it without her making any comment.

"Where is your daughter?" I asked.

"That's what I keep askin' them!" she screeched suddenly. "Where is my daughter, where is my Alicia?" Her voice dropped to conspirational whisper, "An' do you know what they keep tellin' me? Every time I ask?"

I bent, leaning my head closer while trying to hear her. "Dead!" she trembled at uttering that single word. "Dead, they tell me, every time. But I know they're lying to me!" Her voice rose again, making me flinch back. "I know it, an' I've been waitin' for 'er to come back! An' I'll not die before I see my sweet lil angel agin."

The old woman's tirade gave me a sinking feeling in my chest. _This denial...how can she know her daughter is alive?_ But as she continued to stroke my hands, crooning "Alicia" over and over to herself, my chest sank even futher. _She doesn't. She just can't accept the loss. Or maybe she even forgot it, because believing it hurt her too much_. Even on Earth this could happen. _Did_ happen, to many undeserving people.

The door creaked amidst a jangling of bells. I looked back over my shoulder, hoping for help in calming the despairing mother.

A masculine voice spoke out, "Ma?"

"Uh," I answered, feeling awkward, "She's over here?" Footfalls preceded the man who came out from behind the shelves of spices. A fairly unremarkable looking man, wearing the same type of overused clothes as his fellows in the lower quarter. Seeing the way his mother was behaving, he rushed to cross the last few feet between us.

"Ma," he kneeled on her other side, and then repeated more softly, "Ma..."

"Oh," her voice quivered, "Jacob. You were visitin' your sister, weren' you? How is she?"

"Ma," Jacob's voice was pained, "Sis died years ago. A wagon ran o'er her! You remember, don' you?"

"Nonsense!" his mother rebuked him. "Alicia can't be dead. But go on, go on! Keep playin' your nasty games on your poor ol' ma." She let go of my hands to thump her own fists on her lap. A moment later her lap was filled by Jericho, the cat purring and nuzzling at her clawed fingers. Relaxing some of her tension, the old woman began petting the feline. I gave the cat a grateful pat on the head before escaping back a few steps.

"You're that Aria woman, aren' you?" It took a moment before I realized that Jacob was addressing me. Part of me didn't want to respond anyway, fearing any form of identifying with a name someone else had picked. But what had just happened felt like it was my fault, I didn't feel right to just ignore him. And I had another legitimate reason for being there.

"Umm," I searched until I found the list Becca had written and I'd dropped into my basket with the uniform at some point. "Here," I held it out to the man. "Becca from the inn needed some things..."

Jacob took the paper, barely glancing at it. "I'll send it o'er later. You should leave." His eyes, a lifeless brown, wouldn't meet mine. "'M sorry you had to see somethin' unpleasant."

"It's fine," I said quickly. "But, um, will she be...?"

"We'll be fine," he said a bit sharply. "Pity won' help 'er, so save it for somun' what needs it."

"Sorry," I mumbled, quickly retreating and leaving the shop entirely. The bells jingled one last time before I shut the door and leaned against it. _Oooh...that didn't go well_. It couldn't really be called my fault, right? But I still felt terrible. _Save pity for someone who needs it, huh? But the people who actually deserve pity never want it..._

Inhaling deeply, I blew out my breath slowly and adjusted my grip on the basket. _I'm only an outsider, after all. Even if they didn't mind my presence, I wouldn't know what to do_. I stepped away from the door, out into the street, and let myself fall into the current of people going about their daily business. Absently, I closed my right hand over my left and closed my eyes. The skin really did feel smooth.

x x x

_**Vulnerable**_

_Letha: Dang, I've gotten so used to those gloves I was wearing that now I don't feel right without them. I should probably find a new pair... But I actually really hate the idea of wearing them again. Damned if I do, damned if I don't I guess._

x x x

"Excuse me?" I knocked on the door again. This time there was a rattle just before the doorknob turned and it swung open.

A thin man with pointed features blinked at me, squinting behind his spectacles as if he hadn't seen actual sunlight in days and it pained him. "Can I help you?" he enunciated carefully. Reaching up, he adjusted the glasses on his nose while giving me a once over. A bit of disdain entered his expression at my ill fitting and obviously hand-me-down clothes. I, in turn, noticed the ink blots staining his otherwise perfectly white sleeves. And his tie was crooked. (So there, nyeh.)

"Erm," I glanced over his shoulder into the office behind him. There was a desk nearly hidden under stacks of papers, and various paraphernalia that probably went with the dreaded desk work career. "Right. Someone told me you were in charge of matters concerning Flynn's Brigade when he isn't in the city...?" Frankly, I hadn't believed a...a _clerk_ would have much authority in the knights. But looking at this guy I just couldn't imagine he was an acting knight who just happened to get everyone else's paperwork dumped on him. "...Was I mistaken?"

"No, you were told right. What do you need?" The man made no move to invite me inside, he just stood in the doorway staring at me intently. I could almost hear him thinking at me to hurry up so he could get back to work.

I lifted up the basket I'd been carrying a little higher. "I wanted to know how to get this uniform back to its owner. It was, ah, misplaced by a knight by the name of Sarah." I didn't want to get in trouble for borrowing a knight's uniform, and hoped she wouldn't get any punishment for leaving it in a civilian's hands.

"Oh, _that_ one," the clerk drew out the word "that" in a way that implied as much disdain as he'd shown for my personal attire. "Just leave it here, I'll deal with it eventually." Impatiently he grabbed the basket out of my hands before swinging the door shut.

"Hey, wait!" I protested to no avail as the door slammed. Peeved, I banged on the door. "HEY!"

It jerked open again. "_WHAT_. Is. It?" The clerk glared at me.

I thrust my hand forward in a very clear "Gimme." "I only meant to leave the uniform. I need to give the basket back to its owner." He grabbed the clothes out of the basket before tossing it out the door at me. It bounced against my chest and I reflexively closed my arms around it as the door slammed shut again. "Pleasure doing business with you Sunshine," I griped.

"Geez, what a marvelous day," I sighed as I turned away. The street I was on was in a much better off section of the city than the lower quarter. Buildings left and right were in better repair, several of which looked freshly painted. Glass in the windows wasn't rippling with age, or made opaque by swarms of bubbles and other imperfections. And even the people, or I should say _especially_ the people, were different. They looked better fed, practically glowed with good health, and were dressed modestly but in clothes still in their prime. Here and there would be an individual or small group done up in the latest fashion.

Glances were directed my way more than once. But here they were accompanied by people sniggering behind their hands to other pedestrians. And shop owners who saw me standing outside to look in the windows at their wares had given me outright hostile glares. One had even come to the door and told me to move along, there wasn't anything for "my sort" there.

Frustrated, I gave up and retraced my route to go back to the lower quarter. _Just be glad you didn't try wandering into the Royal Quarter. They'd have probably thrown you out by hand for fear of muddy footprints on the street_. What a wonderful sense of community all these people had.

Once I could see the courtyard with the Lower Quarter's fountain down at the other end of the road I felt myself relax. "Well, I'm no more an outsider here than back there. At least there's actually people here willing to talk with me. Without acting like poverty is contagious."

"Miss Owia!" Little Ophelia came running up to me, pigtails and doll's ears all bouncing. "Miss Owia!"

"Hey there, what's the fuss?"

Lia's small hand grabbed mine and began pulling me in the direction she'd come from. "Youw gonna pway wid me now, 'kay?"

"Alright, alright," I agreed, though I felt exhausted at even the thought of playing with the energized girl. "What are we playing?"

"Op-wah!"

I opened and closed my mouth a few times like a fish. "Wait...you mean...we're playing 'Opera'?" It was either that or "Oprah" but the latter seemed highly unlikely somehow.

She pouted, annoyed by how slow on the uptake I was. "Dat's whud I said! Op-wah!" With another tug (kids are surprisingly strong, they don't know the meaning of self control and it's hard to fight back against them for fear of hurting them) she brought me forcefully down to the fountain. "Dis is, dis is da stage!" she announced while climbing up onto the fountain's edge. Some people were already starting to stop and watch us, smiling fondly at the child's antics. Or smirking at me, the victim.

"Oh Lordie, have mercy on me..."

x x x

Nolan was laughing his ass off at me. My cup thunked on the wooden table as I glared at him. But that only made him guffaw with more gusto. Probably because I was still out of breath and flaming red in the face.

"You just can't say no, can ya?" Becca was smiling broadly as she came over to our table. But I forgave her (for the most part) because of the pitcher she was carrying. "More water?"

"Yes," I rasped, pushing my cup over closer to her. And scowled as Nolan burst out in a fresh wave of laughter. "Can it or I'll make _you_ sing!" I grabbed my refilled water and took another long gulp.

Playing "Opera" consisted of Ophelia singing a song, which was cute a sight as anything (puppies and kittens frolicking with butterflies in a cotton candy cloud comes to mind), and then it was my turn to sing. Once she bullied me into a song and I somehow got through it without dying of embarrassment it was her turn again. And then, again, my turn... The game didn't end until Ted came to my rescue, taking the girl away to help buy medicine for her mother.

To his credit Nolan did try and bring his mirth under control. Though doing so seemed to require he look away from me. "Don't feel too bad, you're not the first sucker that tyke has hooked." Since he wasn't looking at me my withering glare was wasted. "She's just like her mother was when she was a youngster. Practically the spittin' image of her too."

"Come to think of it," Becca put in as she claimed one of the empty seats for her own use, "I've never heard the like of the songs Lia got you singing. Where'd you learn them?"

"Around..." I muttered, taking another long sip as an excuse not to elaborate. Ophelia had bombarded me with the names of songs I was supposed to sing. If I had to guess, maybe they were famous songs from the theater that she'd heard about from her mother. I had absolutely no clue how any of them went. Finally, to pacify the frustrated child, I just went ahead and sang whatever songs came to mind.

Becca wondered, "But why did that one song make her start crying?"

"How was I supposed to know she actually knows what 'swan song' means?" I defended myself.

"Huh?" Nolan stopped acting like he was holding the conversation with the empty table next to us. "What's a swan song?"

The innkeeper took the job of explaining it to him. "A person's swan song is their last masterpiece. Though I never did know just why they call it that."

I finished off my water and shook my head when Becca lifted her pitcher again. "It's because people thought swans don't make any noise. Somehow, though, they got the idea that just before a swan dies it will sing a beautiful song. For the first and the last time." And, since I'd never heard of there being swans on Terca Lumireis, I hadn't thought the piece of folklore would exist either. Clearly I'd been wrong.

"Kid was practically begging me not to die. I had to sing three more songs before she got the message that I wasn't gonna quit singing or breathing anytime soon." I wasn't particularly happy about that. Not just because of the humilation factor my stage frightful self had suffered, but because I'd slipped up.

One of the few songs I'd told myself _not_ to sing had come out. I'd been avoiding the foreign languages, not wanting to make myself even more out of place than necessary, any songs that mentioned modern Earth things or places were out, and "Children of the Moon." For obvious reasons. Unfortunately, "Children of the Moon" was one of the songs more deeply rooted in my subconscious, and I'd been so frantic to stop the girl's crying that it was the first one that came out.

_Nice going, smarts_.

No one had remarked on it. I didn't think the Children of the Full Moon would be a widely known story among the lower levels of the working class. But I felt uneasy about it anyway.

Nolan then got serious, "Actually, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about. Though it was driven from my mind seeing, heh, _that_." He leaned on his forearms against the table and gave me a level look. "What are your plans now?"

"Ah," I closed my eyes and nodded, "I've been expecting this."

"You've recovered fast, faster than even Lily expected," I opened my eyes in surprise at that part. He nodded, perhaps confirming for himself that I'd been unaware of any abnormality with my recuperation. "Yes, she told me it's likely because you've spent a period of time in the company of a skilled healer. If you're healed by someone real good enough times, then in the future it makes it easier for healing blastia to repair injuries. Something like having a blueprint to follow." He shrugged, "I don't get it much myself."

_Wow, Estelle isn't even here and she's still helping me out..._

A snort from the innkeeper was followed with a low, "And aren't we all glad you're not the one in charge of the bodhi blastia."

"Yeah, yeah," he waved it off. "But like I was saying, we can't have you living on our charity any longer. You've been a help to Bec, here, but..."

I finished the thought for him. "I'm taking up room and board without paying for it, other than with a few small odd jobs she could probably have given to one of the kids instead."

Nolan shrugged and spread his hands. "That's the shape of it. Either you start being a more productive sort around here, or you can be on your way. The sooner the better."

His words upset Becca, "Now Nolan, you didn't have to put it like that." But the man was unrepentant.

"It's the plain and simple truth."

"It is," I agreed, rubbing at my temples with one hand. "And I really wish I could make it up to you all. There _is_ somewhere else I want to be, but it'll be hard to get there when I don't even own the clothes on my back.

"I said before that someone should be along for me," I reminded him. Not that I was looking forward to Verte coming back, but no new options had popped up. Unless I thought up some get rich quick scheme I simply couldn't fund a journey out of Zaphias. "I'm not sure how long that someone'll take, I actually thought she'd have come by now. But if there's anyway I can make myself useful until she does-"

I wasn't even sure why I cut myself off at first, but for some reason a hush had fallen over the room. Everyone else was staring in the direction of the door or sharing significant and concerned glances with each other. I turned to look as well.

"Oh merde..." the blood drained from my face. In the doorway was a trio of knights. But the kicker was that they wore the colors of the royal guard, a vivid crimson that inevitably drew the eye in the mundanely colored inn. _ Knights? What are they doing here? Even if they felt like slumming it, this should be one of the last places they'd choose to stop by._ I slid down in my chair as the guard at the group's head scanned the common room. _Nothing good can come of this._

In a loud, clear voice of authority he announced, "We're here for the woman called Aria. Will she please come forward now?"

I'd sunk so low in my seat that I almost couldn't see over the table edge. "Oh bloody scheisse and merde..." Everyone else in the room reacted the way normal people normally would. They all turned to gape in my direction. I groaned, knowing I couldn't be more obvious if one of them had nailed up a sign with an arrow on it over my head.

The three knights in red marched across the room to my table, the other customers all scrambling to move or get their own chairs out of the way. I pushed myself up in my seat again but didn't stand. Two of them moved to stand behind me while the leader stood proudly in front of me. "Commandant Alexei requests your presence in the castle. He has matters he would like to discuss with you."

"You've gotta be kidding me," I muttered. He heard and responded (even though that was so very unnecessary).

"No, ma'am, I am completely serious." I buried my face in one hand. It wasn't necessary to look up to know that everyone, Nolan and Becca not least of all, were gawking at me like they'd just suddenly realized I was Frankenstein's monster. _What would Alexei want with 'Aria'? Could he have figured out it's me? How would he have even heard about...scratch that, he probably has hired spies everywhere. Why not a few in the Lower Quarter, keeping an eye on his own backyard?_

Lifting my head again I dared to ask, "Well, _I'm_ not all that interested in talking with him. What then?"

His expression didn't change in the slightest as the knight told me, "I'm afraid I must insist. My orders are very clear." There was nothing overtly threatening about either his words or his appearance, but a cold dread sent a shiver up my spine. If those orders were "by any means necessary" then would this guy really...use any means? If he did I had no doubt that Alexei would mind at all. Not if he got what he wanted.

I didn't want to give these people any trouble, not by starting a fight in their inn or by giving the knights an excuse to label them all with the crime of "harboring a fugitive" or however they wanted to call me. What other choice did that leave me?

"I got it," I said numbly as I stood. "I'll go with you."

"Whenever you're ready, ma'am," the knight said blandly.

"Aria," Nolan started to say, but grimaced instead. It must have seemed to him like he was right about me all along. At least he didn't look happy about being right.

I tried to smile as if nothing was wrong. "Sorry, I really didn't expect something like this to come along looking for me. I hope you don't mind if I don't follow that promise to the letter." I turned back to the knights' leader. "I don't have anything to bring with me, so I'm all set."

"Very well." With me at the center of their happy group, the royal guard started to escort me to the door.

Becca pushed her chair back as she stood up abruptly. "Wait!" I stopped and my chivalrous unit had to stand by as well. But Becca had rushed off towards the kitchen. The kitchen door swung partway closed behind her and there was a clamor of pots banging against each other._ I hope she's not arming herself with a frying pan and cutlery to take on the knights with..._

It wasn't long before she came out of the kitchen again carrying something wrapped in a dish towel. "You don't wanna be leaving these behind," she said by way of explanation while putting the bundle in my hands. "I'm hoping you'll be by again soon, but it would be best to take these back now."

Curiously I unwrapped the towel. My blastia hairclip slipped from one of the folds and nearly fell on the floor before I caught it. And inside were my red and orange spined daggers. I breathed, "You had them?" Honestly I'd been suspecting Nolan of appointing himself their keeper.

She wrung her hands together. "I was only keeping them safe. And I wanted to be sure none of the youngin's would find them. Didn't want anyone to get hurt." Even if she didn't say as much I could guess that I was one of the people who hadn't been meant to find them.

"Thank you, Becca," I told her sincerely. She was giving them back after all. Someone else might have lied and said I'd lost them on my own and forgotten, then turn around and sold them to the highest bidder.

"Ma'am," the royal guard prompted me. Giving the kindly innkeeper a pat on the arm, I gathered my returned belongings under one arm and left with Alexei's men.

x x x

I was abandoned in a (actually quite comfortable) waiting room to cool my heels for about an hour. A sizeable chunk of that time was spent alternately pacing and fidgeting on the cushy chairs and sofas. Fretting about how much Alexei knew, _how_ he knew, and _what_, for the love of God, he wanted exactly. Even if I guessed that was how the Commandant wanted me to be reacting I couldn't help myself.

When a page in red livery finally came to pick me up he found me standing in front of an oil painting on the wall, criticizing most vocally how it looked half finished, half hearted, and probably cost as much as a house. And I could so totally do better (if I only had some acrylic paints).

Hey, it distracted me and kept me from developing full blown neurosis. Though the walk down the corridors with the silent page nearly undid my composure. Several times I'd touched my hand to where I wore Sophia's blastia hairclip under my blouse for reassurance. Wearing it openly in front of knights and nobility had seemed like tempting fate (some high and mighty prick would be bound to try and take it), so I'd used a strip torn from the dish towel to fashion a makeshift necklace out of it.

"Right in here," the boy piped up, knocking on a door in front of us. "Miss, uh, Aria is here, sir!"

"Send her in," the reply came clearly through the door. The page opened the door for me before stepping aside, and then closed it with a _click_ once I was inside. Alexei's office was sparcely decorated, a fireplace at one end, and maps of the city, the continents, and the world were pinned on the walls. A fine crystal vase sat on a small table, but when I peeked inside the layer of dust at the bottom hinted the vase had never known any flowers. There were some functional wooden chairs and a few that looked a bit more comfortable to sit in...and at a very large desk sat the Commandant. A much larger, more expensive looking desk than the one in that clerk's office earlier. Alexei didn't look up or acknowledge me, rather he continued reading from the papers spread before him as if I weren't there.

_It's the CEO's Office technique._ Much like the whole being left in another room deal, though I thought of that one as the Principal's Office technique. People are very good at working themselves up into a frenzy without any outside help, and half of a psychological battle comes from fighting yourself._ You see this one all the time in movies, even if people don't pay attention to it. Some lackey is called to the big honcho's office and has to stand by for who knows how long until the guy is ready to talk to him. It's a ploy to assert his superiority, a reminder that the lackey can't even sit without permission_.

...It actually rather annoyed me. If Alexei thought he could get me to do what he wanted, he'd damn well have to work for it.

He seemed entirely absorbed in his papers, pen scratching lightly as he made some note about whatever he'd read. I couldn't see his eyes because of the way his steel gray hair fell in the way. But I doubted that he'd looked at me even once the whole time.

Schooling my expression into that of a vaguely amused smile, I leisurely ambled across the room to Alexei's desk. There, on impulse, I took the corner of one of the top sheets of paper and yanked it from the pile. For my next disrespectful trick I turned and sat on the edge of the varnished desk as casually as if I owned the place. Since I figured, _Might as well_, I even started to read the document I'd swiped.

"Miss Vitae." My smile became a trifle broader at the vexed tone. I continued reading what sounded like some kind of report about a scouting mission. _Hmm, Hypionia continent? Which one was that again...?_ "Miss Vitae."

"Hush, Alex dear, I'm reading." That did shut him up for a moment. He was probably digesting being called "dear" by some strange woman carrying a pair of exotic daggers (wrapped in a rag!) while she read his reports. I took the opportunity to pick up another paper and look it over. "If you're gonna invite people to visit and then be rude enough ignore them, the least you could do is have some magazines in here."

The silence that followed practically had weight to it. I somewhat regretted having sat on his desk; doing so prevented me from watching the Commandant's reactions on the sly. He could stab me in the back with a letter opener and I wouldn't see it coming.

"Miss Letha Vitae," Alexei almost growled. Almost. Man had some good composure. "One would argue that it is a greater offense to courtesy not to look someone in the eyes when they're speaking with you."

Dropping the papers back onto the desk beside me, "So it is," I levered myself back off the desk and made a show of brushing my dress into place. Without looking at him I walked away a few steps to grab one of the chair. One of the padded ones, who cares if he never told me to make myself comfortable? Only once I'd pulled it around in front of the desk and relaxed into it did I look him in the face again.

Unfortunately he looked as patient as anything, gathering his papers into a neat stack while he waited for me to settle in. Trying not to let my disappointment show I crossed my legs and folded my hands across the knee. My palms were warm and starting to sweat. I was treading a fine line between keeping my cool and having a nervous breakdown.

"Frankly, _sir_, you might as well drop the 'Vitae' business. If you haven't figured out by now that that isn't my name, then I don't know how you've managed to keep your job this long." I arched an eyebrow at him, and was pleased to see his own brows draw together slightly.

The Commandant steepled his hands together on his desk. "Underestimating my abilities is unwise, Miss...should I say Aria now?"

I shrugged, pretending the question bothered me less than it did. "Call me 'Letha', call me 'Aria', heck, make up some nonsense word and call me that for all I care."

"Hmm, no matter," Alexei put both hands on his desk and stood. "What I'm far more interested in is if you were not born on Iliccya, Tolbycia, or Desier, then where is it that you hail from?" With a slow, deliberate pace the Commandant emerged from behind his desk. "Also, I would very much like to hear all of what your homeland knows of the Enduring Shrine of Zaude."

Can't say that was unexpected. I'd been braced for just those words, er, minus the part listing all the continents I wasn't a native from. That part actually made me a little happy. _He doesn't know where I'm from? That means...Raven didn't send a report about that night in Mantaic, when he and Yuri heard about Earth for the first time?_ It was always possible that that report just hadn't arrived yet (not a clue how they did that anyway, could be messenger pigeons for all I knew), but it still felt encouraging.

"Zaude?" I pursed my lips and tapped a finger against them, pretending I wasn't feeling jumpy about the approaching Commandant. "A fairy tale, I think. Can't say I really remember much about it, nobody takes fairy tales seriously." Alexei paused, standing beside my seat. I didn't look up at him. "A fool's dream, to believe in something that doesn't exist when there are more than enough problems in the world that need attention."

A hand clapped down on my shoulder unexpectedly and I couldn't help jumping in my seat. Alexei squeezed my shoulder, as if physically holding me down while his other hand reached and took mine from where it hung across an armrest. "And what is this?"

_You've never seen a hand before?_ The thought never made it to words. Alexei had my left arm by the wrist, and we could both see slivers of orange light trying to shine from under the matte black cast Nevys' mark had taken ever since Verte had messed around with it. "Fascinating," he remarked, "Though I wonder why it holds such importance to her."

I pulled my arm down and away from Alexei until he had to let go. Flustered, I dragged at my blouse sleeve trying to pull it down over my hand enough to cover the tattoo. _Dammit, I'm losing my chance at the upper hand here. _ But when had it started doing that? I hadn't even noticed before!

Alexei's hand lifted from my shoulder and it took all my self restraint to keep from jumping to my feet. I heard the shifting of his armor and thump of his boots on the carpeted stone floor as he left my line of sight. "Let's not have any games now. Just as with the matter of your name, or lack thereof, we both know full well that Zaude is no myth." His footsteps stopped, I peeked over my shoulder and the back of the chair to see what he was doing.

The Commandant stood before the world map on his wall, studying it intently. "Soon all the pieces shall fall into place and the power of Zaude will at last be in my hands." Arms crossed behind his back, Alexei turned to me again. "You and your comrades hope for Zaude to rise again as well, do you not?"

"What? You think I...?" I shook my head at the absurdity of _me_ and the others wanting something like that to happen. Heck, the others hadn't even _heard_ of Zaude yet! "I've no idea where you got that idea from, but you couldn't be any more wrong."

Barely had the words left my mouth when the door to the hallway swung open again. "No need to be coy, little pawn," the newcomer said, skirts making a slithering noise on the stone floor until she'd stepped onto the room's carpets. "We have utmost confidence in the Commandant as an ally."

"Ivalyn, what a unexpected pleasure for you to join us," Alexei greeted her politely, though his voice lacked any warmth.

I could only stammer, "Y-you? Verte?" If I hadn't already been sitting I would have fallen into the nearest chair.

The fairy stood in the center of the room, cool jade eyes passing over me to Alexei. She dipped a shallow, perfunctory bow. "Be assured, Commandant, my servant and I shall do all in our power to support you in your goal."

Verte's green eyes glanced at me. She didn't need to say anything for me to get the message. One way or another, she was going to make sure I stayed in line and didn't interfere with Alexei's plans.

x x x

Taking liberties with known facts in the game again, seeing how far I can stretch them. Also made use of information gleaned from the First Strike movie, as well as some manga chapters I've read on Mangafox. The story about Flynn and the boy trying to steal grain is a reference to the side story that focuses on Flynn. _Tales of Vesperia - Furen Seinaru Hakugin no Kishi_ or in English_ Tales of Vesperia-Flynn, The Holy Silver Knight_ That title makes me laugh each time...

But argh, I rewrote the last scene so many times! Curse you, Alexei and Letha!  
*Alexei and Letha look at each other*  
Alexei: Perhaps we should call a truce and work together against our mutual foe.  
Letha: Take down Sylph? I'm game with that.  
Sylph: Uhhh...

More Ophelia speak! Not much of it this time, and it probably wasn't too hard this time around:

You're gonna play with me now, 'kay?  
That's what I said! Opera!  
This is, this is the stage!


	58. Chapter 58: Take a Leap

*Sylph shakes head and makes an irritated noise* This chapter is a bit weird. Obviously, the talk with Alexei is important, but I didn't want to unload the whole thing on you guys at once. That could probably take up a whole chapter on its own. So I, uh, messed around with the chapter a bit to try and make the pacing better, and tried to condense the next week or so of Letha's life into something more manageable. Which still took up more than I thought it would...

Angelic:

*Bows* I accept your words with pride. After all~

_"It's so easy when you're evil  
This is the life, you see  
The Devil tips his hat to me  
I do it all because I'm evil  
And I do it all for free  
Your tears are all the pay I'll ever need!"_

(With compliments to Voltaire!) ;D

x x x

Chapter 58: Take a Leap

x x x

The ladder made metallic _clang_ noises as I climbed up it rung by rung. Feeling the way my new footwear arced around the steps, as if I were wearing mere slippers, made me frown. After wearing heavier boots for months, it was disconcerting to be able to feel the ground with each step again. But my "shoes" were at least comfortable, with a few layered pieces of leather affixed to the bottom to protect the soles of my feet. And, while I usually had a fairly light and quiet tread when I walked, these shoes made me silent as a ghost.

Which was in keeping with the first thing out of my mouth when Verte had presented me with the new clothes. "What am I supposed to be, a ninja masquerading as a challenger in a martial arts tournament?" The fairy was not amused.

The shoes had wide yellow ribbons, laces, whatever, that wrapped around my ankles and up my legs. To spare myself some embarrassment, I related them to being like the taped boots from the Soul Calibur character creation program. It felt less silly than calling them ballet slippers. Ballet slippers for ninjas. Ballerina ninjas. _CHANGE line of thought NOW._

The taped boots wrapped around outside of the black slacks I wore. Their straight cut pushed them over the indefinable line I had drawn between pants and dress slacks. But around the waist they were oddly like Japanese hakama. Simply put, the traditional Japanese wear that has the openings on either hips, anime fans likely would notice this at some point as I had. But the slacks didn't billow around the legs like true hakama, instead tapering in near the ankle. There was just enough room under them for the greaves I wore, pieces of toughened leather to protect my shins.

So far, that would have been enough to make me feel like a shinobi wannabe. On top...well...over everything I wore something that looked like it had been styled off of a martial arts gi (and let's set aside what I wore under that for now). It was less like the functional-purposes-_only_ one I had trained in way back when, and more like a fashion designer had a hand in the planning. Rich yellow-gold in color with a dark interior lining, the cut was a bit more elegant and flattering. The sleeves were a bit narrower in the upper arm, but flared in a bell shape around the hands. And the bottom hem had a weird zig zag thing going on that reminded me of how children would cut triangles out of paper and tape the ends together to make a crown.

Still, wearing it felt reassuring. I knew firsthand that a gi was durable, capable of holding up to the roughest treatment, without hampering one's movements. And the one I was wearing...

"What is this made of?" I had asked curiously, one hand sliding down a smooth sleeve before pulling on it hard. It was more elastic than your run-of-the-mill gi, stretching under the pressure.

Verte blinked, "Spider silk." I raised a brow at her, wondering if she was pulling my leg. She crossed her arms and caved. "I speak the truth. Even on your Earth, it is recognized as a highly desirable textile, with strength comparable to steel and," a beat as her slender finger tapped her arm, searching for a word, "kevlar, I believe it is called."

Needless to say, I decided I really liked my kevlar spider silk gi.

I snorted a laugh as I topped the ladder, climbing onto the stone and straightening. I looked back over my shoulder, down at the ground I'd come from.

Deidon Hold was situated in a bottleneck where two mountain ranges nearly merged. Sheer cliffs rose to the east and west of the fortress, sheer walls closed it off from the north and south. To my uneducated eye it looked nicely defensible. As long as nobody came from the top of those cliffs with either grappling hooks, ladders, or nasty big rocks to throw in on people's heads. That would, however, require an exhausting trek through the mountain ranges themselves. And the idea seemed more along the lines of establishing protection from monsters.

The hold was manned by knights wearing dull earthen colors, predominately brown (Schwann's brigade, right?), who went about their work efficiently. I'd been apprehensive at the idea of just waltzing into a place crawling with knights considering my previous encounters, but I was given no more than the same cursory examination on the way in as the other travelers. After that I was no big deal as long as I refrained from knifing people with my daggers Tonberry style.

Yet, even with the impression that this place could put up a hell of a fight at the drop of a hat, the feeling in the air wasn't one of tense nerves or the anticipation before a battle. People-knights, merchants, and travelers merely passing through-all went about their business in a relaxed manner. For a militaristic establishment, this place almost had a feeling of _community_.

_Maybe it's the trees_, I mused to myself. _Any place that has flourishing trees, growing wherever the trees damn well please, thank you very much, always gets into my good books until further notice_. Smirking privately at my own expense, I turned away from my spot overseeing the inner workings of the fortress and crossed the rampart walkway to look out over the plains.

They were...plain. A smooth patchwork of brown earth and yellow green grass. Oh, and teeming with monsters that looked like giant gray swinub. Or, to be more accurate, like whatever the evolved form of that pokemon was... They were Big Hairy Boars, okay? I couldn't believe they were still here from the time Yuri and Estelle had tried passing through (they hadn't told us that story, but if they had Karol tagging along then they should have been forced to take the route through the Quoi Woods), so they must have left and just recently come back. Without any humans out there to trample, the monsters were killing time butting heads and trying to run down any smaller monster stupid enough to come near.

While this had many of the other people held up inside Deidon Hold grumbling about setbacks to their schedules, I wasn't all that bothered. My plans were only to take a quick look around while playing "Hot, Cold, Fetch!" for Verte. Since her vines strangling Nevys mark seemed to make it less sensitive, I had to pay particular close attention to any reactions given off by my left hand.

Which I frowned at, eyes tracing the dark lines that were no longer hidden under the protection of a glove. If I wanted to be all deep and philosophical about it, the gloves were probably more to protect myself so I wouldn't think about my predicament. So I could deny and forget that I had very limited control anymore. Now I needed to heighten my awareness of the mark so I wouldn't miss any future light shows, so there was no getting a new pair for me. It still bugged me that _Alexei_ had noticed before I had back in Zaphias.

Even so, I had been sorely tempted earlier when I passed a stall down in the Hold's courtyard that was selling gloves.

To back up a bit, after Verte's grand entrance and hijacking of the spot light from Alexei, I had become little more than an extra piece of furniture in the room. Since I had so utterly failed at keeping myself in any semblance of control over the situation, I had settled for watching the exchange between the two and scrutinizing every thing said and _not_ said.

_"While I've no doubts that your promises are not made lightly, Miss Ivalyn," the Commandant had responded diplomatically, "you must understand that at times it can be...difficult, one would say, to trust that you've been entirely candid with me."_

_Verte had flashed a friendly smile, or tried to. Her acting skills didn't cover making facial expressions naturally, they were too obviously artificial when there wasn't honest feeling behind them. "No need to concern yourself, Commandant. With so many other claims to your attention, I simply did not want to burden you with trivial details."_

_Alexei had started pacing (prowling really) across the room and, not a second after he started moving, Verte had begun pacing herself. Her skirt-sash swept across the floor as she moved, keeping a constant amount of distance between her and the man. And he had definitely noticed. "Appreciated as such consideration is, I would still like to be kept informed as to your movements at the very least. How else can I expect to contact you when you're needed?"_

A slight breeze lifted the hair from the back of my neck, and I narrowed my eyes in pleasure. It was shortlived, as I considered my memories. Much of the encounter had been like that. I'd sensed, underneath all the civility, a rather intense sparring match. While on the surface Verte was all for letting Alexei have his way, she was still holding something back. And he knew it.

_Probably expects it, really, he'd be stupid not to_. I wondered if he knew Verte was a fairy...even if he did, she probably hadn't let him in on the whole Iron is BAD for Fairies detail. Which was why they'd spent half the time circling each other around the office. The Commandant had been wearing armor, and Verte hadn't wanted to get any closer than necessary. Usually her avoidance wasn't so blatantly obvious as that first time, but it was like watching a pair of dogs chasing each other's tail.

_Well, she certainly hasn't placed herself at his beck and call, and our dear Commandant clearly doesn't like being limited in his control. He has to trust her, and who the hell would willingly do that?_

He had only one advantage going for him, or so he thought.

_Verte had by that point positioned herself by my chair, where I had slumped and pretended an intense interest in examining my nails. "As much as I'd love to continue this chat, I'm afraid it will have to wait for a latter date. I have some rather pressing work that needs to be attended to, and need this one in order to do it." Her hand rested on the back of my chair, possessive._

_Alexei had returned to the other side of his desk but had yet to reclaim his seat. "This 'pressing work' of yours..."_

_"Has no bearing on your own goals," the fairy interrupted smoothly, inserting her words into a natural pause in his speech. It made the head of the knights frown slightly before he continued._

_"Then I presume it is related to the young lady's," a bare scoff to his tone at those last two words, "intriguingly marked hand?" With no further prompt I held up my left hand so Verte could see how the orange light flickered from Nevys' part of the tattoo. "My sources inform me that she is, and by extension, you are, searching for an unspecified object. I would be correct in thinking that this would be connected?"_

_I couldn't see Verte's reaction, and she didn't say anything at first. Alexei, however, I could see just fine. He was looking a bit smug now, as if he believed he'd one upped her and seized the upper hand. "You would be correct," the fairy admitted grudgingly. I blinked, surprised that she made no attempt to deny or mislead him, and grew even more confused with each word following. "This one's duty is in locating objects considered highly precious by our people. Perhaps...you have seen it?" And then she even went as far as to provide a brief description of the jeweled tipped rod pieces._

_The Commandant considered the question, taking his time as if thinking back. His eyes were measuring us and our reactions to the silence. "I cannot say that I have, for certain," he finally allowed. I couldn't tell if that was truth or falsehood. "But if it is here, then I can say with confidence that I can have it located for you, while you pursue your other work."_

_A rustle of movement from behind me, I imagined Verte making another shallow bow or dip of her head. "Then I may rest assured, sir, knowing that it is in good hands." Then the hiss of her skirt-sash retreated across the carpet. "Come, child, we musn't tarry."_

_"W-wait!" I cried, bouncing up out of my seat. I scrambled around to follow her out the door, instinctively not wanting to be left behind._

_"Miss Vitae," Alexei called. I stopped with my hand on the open door. Slightly, I turned my head to show attentiveness, but did not face him. "I hope we can also continue our talk from before soon. I'll be looking forward to it."_

_"...I won't be," was all I said before slipping out and shutting the door behind me. I had to trot down the halls to catch up to the green fairy. "Verte! Verte, what was that all about?" I asked breathlessly when I drew up next to her. "What happened to all the cloak and dagger type mystery around the-"_

_"Hush," she admonished me with a cold look. "Even in the mundane buildings of humanity, the walls have ears." I pressed my lips together tightly, though wondered why now she bothered with being cautious. Satisfied, she picked up her brisk pace down the hallways. Glum and brooding, I dogged her steps in silence. After a moment of this, she murmured, "Whether or not Alexei has the heirloom in his possession at this moment, he will believe that its presence in his castle makes it a card in his favor. We want it, he has it."_

_"Extra leverage for him, besides whatever else you've already promised," I clarified, not trying to disguise the implied accusation._

_She ignored it in favor of the literal. "Precisely. He is incapable of using it for anything else, and we can easily reclaim it at our own convenience. Until then, it will serve beyond its intended purpose by making the Commandant an even more predictable pawn." She volunteered no more information at the time, silently leading the way out of the castle while I tagged along behind._

The fairy was playing Alexei. Like they were all playing me. He just hadn't realized yet that they were manipulating him.

"Gald piece for your thoughts?" The unwelcome familiar cool voice made me tense.

"You don't really think I'd sell those, do you?" I asked sarcastically. "It's one of the few things you fairies have left alone." I glanced sideways at the petite fairy in green that had, without my notice, joined me on the wall. For the first time I noticed that she was actually about my height, though definitely a bit shorter. Still, a spiteful part of me felt a bit gleeful to confirm that Nevys was a good chunk shorter than even her.

"Not that I particularly care what your thoughts on any matter are," she dismissed, "but in this case I wished to know if there is any good news."

I shifted my hand so that she could see the stubbornly dark lines. "Combed this place top to bottom, twice, and still nothing." The second time around I'd been more thorough, acting as if during my first tour I had dropped something and couldn't remember where. A few kind souls even offered to help me look, which was nice even if I had turned them down.

Verte sighed, a brief moment of weariness passing through her features. "It was a long shot, but I suppose it is to be expected. On to the Quoi Woods next, then." She made a move towards the ladder down to the ground, meaning to exit town first again before fairy poofing us across the continent. We'd barely gotten out the main gate of Zaphias before we'd done just that, after all, and reappeared about a mile from this fortress.

"Can I ask," I quickly put in before she could start her descent, "Why are you working with Alexei anyway?" Her jade eyes fell on me, brow rising just so, but hardly at all, in one of the small facial gestures I was learning to look for. "Your goals are far from the top of his priority list, and you all make it seem like _I'm_ the easiest way to find those damned heirloom pieces. So what gives?"

With a slightly more audible breath of air, her version of a derisive snort, I got the impression that she was now viewing me with some contempt. "I believe I already told you as much once before. The show must go on, and the actors must recieve their cues. Why ruin a perfectly good script that already leads towards the outcome I desire?"

"But, helping Alexei," I frowned, "what about his plans helps you in any way...?" Trailing off, I ran through a quick list of everything the Commandant accomplishes before- "He dies in the end. Well before the end, actually. If you want events to follow the story..."

"My goal," she informed me stiffly, "is and has always been to recover what was stolen from us. It takes priority over all else, even," she hissed, eyes narrowing, "wringing the neck of that foul wretch."

Since her hatred for Nevys couldn't be made clearer if she'd written _"NEVYS HATE"_ on a two by four and smacked me with it, I could guess that said a lot about how important this recovery job was to her. So if that was why she was cooperating with Alexei...and Alexei wanted to open the way to Zaude in his mistaken pursuit of power...

I drew in a sharp breath, "You want to get into Zaude. You think there are pieces there."

"Clever pawn is catching on," she mocked. "It hasn't been easy, Alastor and Sybelle's little human has been up to funny business on his own, and then you started trying to meddle back in Nordopolica. At least that was easily remedied. All I needed to do was disguise myself as a concerned neutral party and warn that overeager knight that his princess needed rescuing."

My blood turned to ice. "You told...Belius' death is _completely_ your fault!" _It wasn't enough for her to _stab_ Belius with her vines, she manipulated Flynn into killing her too! But, if everyone thinks the Duce's death is the Empire's doing-wait,_ "And you made sure the blame would still fall on the Union, didn't you?" I growled in my throat, taking a threatening step towards her.

"Of course, it would waste time if I were to lead a war to the Commandant's doorstep." Not the least intimidated by my approach, Verte actually stepped forward to meet me. "Now, here's your reward for figuring out so much on your own," she said, and then pushed me. I felt a surge of the energy I'd come to associate with fairy magic just as a greater force than I expected from that little shove thrust me back. My back bumped against the crenelations on the edge of the wall, and Verte was in front of me again. "Take the long way to the woods and work on your survival skills," she ordered before giving me another magic powered shove and sending me falling back into space.

"Shi-!" I twisted in the air so that I could see the ground coming up to meet me. Without taking time to really process the thought, I reflexively tried to save myself the way it always works in animes and other fictional role models. I snatched up whatever wind element aer I could and flung it down ahead of me. Dust and dirt blew up into a cloud, making my eyes water, but there was also a cushioning affect from the barely formed mass of wind aer.

Air whooshed out of my lungs with an "Oomf!" as I belly flopped in the dirt. Groaning, I took a moment to be thankful that the aer slowed me enough so that hitting the ground didn't snap my ribs. I wasn't keen on cracking or breaking them again any time soon. Pushing myself up on all fours, I brushed at the silk of my gi and slacks to knock the dirt off.

Something made a porcine snort and pawed at the ground. Already knowing this wouldn't be pretty, I slowly looked up from myself. Two of the evolved swinub boars were squaring off, maybe twenty feet away from me. They'd probably been about to fight each other, over dominance or something, but seemed to be getting the idea that I might be more fun to step on. I got that feeling from the way they reared up, forelegs kicking, and when they came back down they were both facing me instead of each other.

"Crap stick," I cursed, snatching up my daggers from under the hem of my gi. Phoenix, the red spined one, fit comfortably in my right hand while Simurgh went to my left. "I hate you so hard right now, Verte." Both swinub boars charged towards me.

Kicking off hard from the ground, I scrambled to the side out of their paths. They tore past, unable to correct themselves in time to catch me under their stumpy hooved legs. While it would have been a good opportunity to attack them from behind, I elected instead to jump on my feet and pump my legs like crazy in an escape. If I took the time to fight those two monsters, I'd find myself in the middle of four times that many by the time I'd finished.

"Gate gate gate gate gate gate-" I chanted as I ran along the wall. Deidon Hold's gate was, of course, closed. I banged on the lowered portcullis and hollered, "Open the gate, open the gate, open the GATE!" Verte's green haired head appeared above me as she looked down.

"The long way, child," she reiterated. "Better get started."

Desperate, I shot a look over my shoulder. The two boars I'd dodged had gotten themselves turned around again and nearly had me in their sights, and the attention of several others in the area (up to about fifty or sixty feet away?) was on me. _So much hate for green fairies..._

Stand my ground and fight? Stupidly suicidal. Run like hell? Probably still stupidly suicidal, animal instincts is to _chase_ the running quarry, but felt like my better option.

"Running, running, ruuunniiing!" My feet pounded against the ground as I lit out towards the west, hoping some miracle would get me to the shelter of the forests at the foot of the mountain range before I became a bloody smear on the plains. _At least they don't have tusks or anything they could gore me with!_

x x x

Simurgh chopped through the neck of a yellow turkey with an axe for a beak, nearly beheading the monster. Jerking it back out, I used the momentum in a spin away from the collapsing body and lash out with Phoenix. Water whip swished through the air and clipped the thin wing of the monstrous wasp monster, knocking it out of the air. Snapping my right wrist, I brought the whip down on the wasp hard before letting the water go from my control.

Panting, I wobbled over to the bug and made sure of it with a quick stab of a dagger before allowing myself a break. Brushing the hair out of my eyes with the back of my hand, I glanced around to reassure myself that there were no more monsters hiding among the trees or bushes.

In the Rules of Video Games, monsters that live so close to where your low level character starts adventuring are low level themselves. That didn't entirely hold true, but the monsters actually weren't too bad an ordeal. They were anatomically smaller than what I'd gotten used to around Dahngrest, Nordopolica, and Mantaic, and none of the bug variety had that exoskeletal armor thing going on. But those failings were made up for by the monsters having an agility bonus their less imposing size gave them. _Darwin's laws about evolution and what not. They've evolved according to what works in this environment, and what traits are in the genetic pool_. That last thought was maybe a bit of a nod to Mendel. Biology class had been a couple of years ago.

In any case, the monsters in the Quoi Woods were much preferable to the Giant Hairy Boars that had chased me. Verte _must_ have been watching from somewhere the whole time, she didn't want me to outright die. Just suffer a little. Like the time when I fought Nevys' dogs, she'd kept me from getting killed but didn't have any problems with me being severely injured. In the plains the majority of saving my ass was on my shoulders, but I _know_ once or twice I saw grass wrap around the legs of a boar and trip it up before it got near me.

Even if she had been helping, I just knew she probably laughed her ass off (or the ice woman equivalent thereof) when the Lord of the Plains joined in on the sport. Friggen' thing was more like a bull than a boar. He _had_ run over me at one point, not a pleasant experience, but the permeability had kicked back in and saved my life again. So it hadn't been permanently busted, maybe just...had a limited number of uses per day?

Groaning at the memory, I forced my feet to start moving again. I'd already learned not to linger overlong where dead monsters lay. The smell of blood would attract other monsters, scavengers looking for an easy meal. And while not dead, I may still register as easy pickings to some.

As if summoned by my very thoughts, a growl rose from behind me. I froze, momentarily panic stricken as my mind latched onto the memory of the fairy dogs growling while they surrounded me. With a surge of terror I spun around, daggers flashing up in front of me.

Yellow eyes glared at me from the brush before leaping out with a snarl. I yelped as a dark canine form lunged towards me, right arm shooting out to force Phoenix down the gaping maw. Choking, teeth clamping on my arm once in its death throes, the monster slid off and fell dead. Just a normal wolf, like many others I'd seen and fought before. Smaller even than wolves back on Earth, more like Repede's size.

Gasping as the rush faded from my system, I held up my arm for inspection. The spider silk held up to its reputation, not the least damaged other than drool and blood smeared across the yellow. And even if it hadn't been able to hold up, under its sleeves I was further protected by light leather bracers laced tight to my forearms. There was further protection given by the shoulder guards I wore, strapped to the fitting black leotard I wore under the gi.

A leotard. Damn Ballerina Ninja images again. What Verte was thinking, I had not a clue, but the leotard even lacked a proper left sleeve. The collar instead dipped down under the left arm, still covering what decency demanded, but looking oddly mismatched. If I took the gi off there'd be nothing on my left arm or shoulder besides the simple leather pauldron and bracer.

Shaking my head, I looked around for the trail I'd been following. _Weird style or not, the light armor additions _are_ helping. I can't even complain about these pauldrons much. They're not the level of ridiculous you see in stereotypical fantasy designs, and I do have a bad habit of getting gnawed, slashed, and pierced in that area_.

My train of thought died, though, as I looked back at the mess of monsters I'd left. Particularly the wolf. "I thought it was..." with another shake of my head, I resolutely turned away and forged on. _Understandable. It was a bad experience. But you can get over it_.

"Do or die," I muttered. "Get stronger, lose the unneeded emotional baggage, and take some chances." That was the strategy I'd come up with to upgrade myself from fairy pawn to a qualified player in their mind games. I went with the flow way to easily, even in Nordopolica, and that was why it never seemed like my efforts were enough.

My new mantra was "Leap before you look." Better that then get blasted off another wall by a fairy while I was busy looking.

x x x

Nothing of interest turned up in the Quoi Woods, not so much as a flicker of light. Verte didn't come to pick me up, though, so I set up a rough camp with the few supplies I'd left Zaphias with. It rankled to know that I was using Alexei's charity, but I was practical about it. So the Commandant had given me equipment, in keeping with the odd cooperation between him and Verte, what could I do besides use it? Boycotting it and then starving for the sake of pride was stupid, getting eaten by a monster while I slept even worse. Using a tent with a scent barrier and eating the army trail rations solved both those problems.

I'd even gotten a small purse of gald, enough to last me for a week, maybe two if I was careful. Again, not spending it because it was _Alexei's_ wouldn't help me any. If I found some other source of income to shore up my reserves, then I could assuage my pride and turn up my nose at his goodwill gift. Until I ran out.

_Face it,_ I chided myself, _if you needed something, bad, and had the money to buy it, considerations like "but it came from my enemy!" wouldn't count for much. Just how you are_.

I didn't voice any of these thoughts to Verte when she showed up in the morning. Seeing as she regularly tried to make people dance like puppets on a string, I could very well guess what her take on the matter would be.

She skipped me across the continent again, us popping out of existence to reappear in Ehmead Hill. First off I noticed the barrier blastia Judith had trashed (_...Heheh, Ekaterine, wasn't it, Rita?_) had at least been moved to the side of the road out of the way. The wreckage was still there as an unintended monument to the Dragon Rider's mission. My sour expression (I'd been dealing with Verte, of course I was sour) softened as I thought of my krityan friend.

_Judith... I wonder how you're doing now?_ Other than knowing the gang meets up with her at Mount Temza, there is little information provided about what Judith does on her own. Could she already be guarding Ba'ul as he goes through his evolution? Or was it yet too early for that?

For a moment, it occurred to me that there was a possibility that she _hadn't_ left the group. I hadn't seen it happen after all. There could be a number of small reasons, small _changes_, that could have altered that. _That would be nice...I want to talk to them, though the thought frightens me. And I've always just felt that, even if Judith found out the truth, it wouldn't change much between us at all_. Even if the others accepted the whole story and still counted me as a friend, it was unavoidable that the dynamic would _still_ change. But maybe not with Judith...

Shaking myself out of my wistful thoughts, I looked over at Verte. "I doubt there's anything here. We took the detour route last time, and covered most of the hill that way."

The fairy returned my look before surveying our surroundings herself, eyes eventually settling on the ruined blastia. "I suppose you would have. Very well, next destination." I braced myself for the magical warp, but suddenly she uttered a soft, "Oh!" Verte then hiked up her skirt-sash to her hips so that it no longer dragged across the ground, and hustled off into the underbrush along the side of the road. The wicker basket of flowers that hung on her arm bounced up and down in her haste. I stood, slack jawed, staring after her. I half expected that if I were to look next to me at where she'd just been standing, I would see the dignity she'd just left behind.

"Verte?" I called, loping off after her. I managed to pick through the interlocking bushes easily enough and found myself on the game trail we had all followed when bypassing the knights. A sarcastic voice in my head mimicked Leblanc's voice yelling "Yuuuri!" and I sniggered to myself. Following the trail with silent footsteps, hands hovering near my daggers, I tried to find where Verte had run off to.

I didn't have to go very far. A short ways up the trail I found her kneeling by a cluster of long stemmed flowers. Lilies, I realized, but fire red. She was gently stroking the petals of one, crooning to it in a low voice. "Cyrtanthus bloom," the fairy murmured, then vigorously buried her hands in the dirt, uprooting three of the flowers.

"Souvenir?" I questioned. "Is there some kind of magic trick you can use them for?" I was remembering the tawny colored lily she'd used to mess with my short term memory after the True Naming stunt.

Verte lifted the flowers, roots, dirt and all, and gently tucked them into the basket that practically lived on her elbow. "These are the flowers your game labeled as 'fire lily'," she told me. "I have not had any opportunity before to discover its uses, or if its nativity to this world gives it unique properties. But I know exactly the spot in my garden where I may transplant them..." Levering herself back onto her feet, she pulled up her skirts again and was off.

Ready for it this time, I managed to follow closer on her heels. But when I saw she was making a beeline to the billybally leaf plants (that I still thought had a suspiciously carnivorous look to them) I came to an abrupt stop. The fairy approached the flowers without fear, crooning again, and somehow got close to them without getting a face full of pollen. "Great," I muttered, "Now she'll be able to throw that stuff around too."

It wasn't long before Verte finished her "harvesting" of the local flora. Samples stored away in her basket, she swept her way over me with her skirts gathered up in one hand. "On we go, then," she said, cool as if she'd just finished a minor side errand during a larger shopping trip. The fairy reached out with her free hand and took my arm in hers.

"Wait, can't we take a-"

A current of fairy magic, abrupt change in the lighting, and a feeling of _difference_ in the air, myriad small changes in various stimuli that my senses could only acknowledge on a basic level.

"-break?" I grimaced.

"What were you saying?" Verte asked levelly as she dropped my arm, "I'm afraid we left your words behind, and I didn't hear them."

"Left my..." my mouth worked silently as I failed to find words. "God, don't say it like that. You make it sound like we broke the sound barrier or something."

She just gave me one of those blank looks, one green brow rising up minutely. "I would suppose that, by the standards of you Earth humans; with the amount of ground we covered within the second we traveled, we technically did." I groaned, pressing one hand against my forehead. A full ten seconds, and then I lowered my hand again and looked around more carefully. No place I recognized, seemed like some random section of wilderness, a forest not too far off in the distance...

"Wait," my head snapped around back to the empty face that watched me patiently. "Did you make a joke?"

Only a blink and, "Why would I?"

x x x

"This is Caer Bocram."

Verte's declaration was largely unnecessary. _Yeah, this looks familiar..._ There was the ruins of the town; stone walls crumbling under the slow but sure grip of roots, grass sprouting up through the streets' remains, forcing cracks in the pavement open wide. I found it, oddly, both sad and satisfactory. Sad; humanity could not leave a mark that would speak of us when we were gone, that wouldn't be erased in the march of time. Satisfied; to see how, given the time, the natural order could repair itself and the world would restore the balance of life.

_I always did get where characters like Duke were coming from..._

Not that I agreed with them.

"Why are we here?" I asked. "Sure, the mark kept reacting when I was here last, but that was because of Alastor." That thought gave me pause. "Or...I'm pretty sure it was because of him..." Though maybe one of those times, it hadn't?

The green fairy woman nodded as if guessing my train of thought. "It won't hurt to look." Without waiting for any response from me she turned away and strode off down the street, vanishing around the corner of a dilapidated two story building. While I watched her walk away it struck me that she didn't really need to personally look around. She could stay in one place and leave me to my own search, even leave for wherever the fairies went on their downtime.

Deciding it didn't matter much at the moment, I chose a different street and took off in my own direction.

x x x

It really must have been because of Alastor's monitoring before, all those times when my left hand had burned with orange. It didn't react in the slightest this time.

Finding the underground room where we'd seen Ent, the Entelexeia who's name I couldn't recall, had reminded me of what else had been unusual about that visit. During the fight, a red fletched arrow shot by an unseen helper had done just enough to save me from getting stepped on. Arrows that I now knew went to a bow Alastor had. The one he'd used in Mantaic.

_So,_ that led me to wonder, _just how long...and how _often_ has he been monitoring me anyway?_ There was the time after the Red-eyes had kidnapped me, red arrows had immediately preceded Chase's appearance. _Maybe it wasn't by chance that he was the one that found me..._

Like back in the Quoi Woods, Verte didn't come to meet up with me again even once I was finished. It was getting dark anyway, so I had just set up a tent again. But I was reusing the one from before, the only one I had, and no longer had a scent barrier to drive away the monsters with. I had to sleep lightly, always on alert for some monster trying to raid my camp while I slept. It was possible, a sleep deprived and cranky part of my mind decided bitterly after I dispatched a pair of owls and an _umbrella_ (part of me wondered if I had dreamed that fight), that it was part of Verte's plan for toughening me up.

When she did show up in the morning I probably would have snapped at her, demanding to know what she'd been up to. Before I got even one word out I happened to get a glimpse inside her basket. Was it just me, or did it look...fuller, than before?

..._She's plant hunting!_ I realized with a grin. _That garden must be quite the hobby_. A green thumb wasn't one of my skills, but it did seem to me that gardening required regular attention and a lot of it. Maybe that was why she kept vanishing for prolonged periods? _Though what excuse do the rest of the fairies have?_

Thinking it was far too likely that Verte would start jumping us around the continent before I even finished dismantling the tent, I sought to delay her while I finish packing up.

"So," I started conversationally, "Ivalyn, is it? Alexei called you that a few times." With a twist I dismantled one of the tent poles.

Three poles later I stopped to look over at her, wondering at the lack of any answer. Verte was watching, expression odd. If I didn't know better, I'd say, baffled?

"Ivalyn Verte," she finally said. "Many of my kin adopt multiple names. Some, only to adapt to human customs and conceal themselves, others, for personal reasons."

That piqued my curiosity, when the question had originally just been a bid for time. "What about you?"

"A title, that came with my duties," she said shortly. "I am Ivalyn, and I am the Verte. As Sybelle is the Bianca, and there is the Schwarz..."

"Your titles," I couldn't mask my disbelief, "are _colors?_"

Her gaze was cool and more derisive than it had been for awhile. "I don't believe you are in any position to judge."

"A-ah," _Go go, power rangers..._ "Can't argue with that."

x x x

It was official. I _did not_ like Ghasfarost, the Tower of Gears. Place needed a bloody elevator installed! Heights didn't normally bother me. Look down into the Grand Canyon? Neat! Stand on top of the Empire State building? Fine! I had even been curious about what riding Ba'ul would be like. But climbing stair way after stair way, with only a railing between me and a long way down? There were _so_ many reasons, from stupidity to legitimate accident, why I could be leaning on one only to discover it was shoddily made.

Verte had "suggested" I investigate the lower levels first, paying particular attention for any basement levels that might have gone unnoticed. The tower was built on ruins, after all, and those ruins seemed to be where she held most of her expectations. That had been in the morning, not long after dawn, but noon had me making my way back down after reaching the top of the tower.

The monsters that had established residence in the abandoned structure, or that had remained after it was abandoned, were mostly not too bad an issue. Bandits infested the ground floors, and they must have kept the numbers thinned. I hadn't wanted to fight with any humans, so I disregarded Verte's orders and sneaked passed them. Ninja outfit had a use after all. The gi was even reversible, I discovered, turning it inside out and wearing the black silk lining on the outside.

Climbing the tower, I did have to do some fighting. Flying monsters, the oddest of which resembled pelicans while the others were more raptor like, and a few functional robots. Robots that looked like they'd been modeled on body builders, and some engineer had gotten the bright idea to install _wheels_ into their hands. WHAT FOR? Figures, even on another world I didn't get the point behind some technology.

_"-We let the blind man lead the way too long,  
easy to see where we went wrong._

_"No one to turn to,  
nowhere to run to."_

I was singing, under my breath, the same damned song I'd let slip while playing "opera" with Lia. The Alan Parson's Project, "Children of the Moon." But, after all, I wasn't going to give a damn about that anymore, right? Leap before looking and all that.

_"Too late to save us, but try to understand  
the seas were empty, there was hunger in the land.  
We let the wise man beat the drums too soon.  
We were just Children of the Moon._

_"Nothing to live for  
nothing to die for"_

Hiding wasn't going to help anymore.

_Verte and I had only gone down a few halls before we crossed paths with someone I'd never expected to see there, even if her presence could have been expected. A krityan woman, dressed in purple overcoat (that still managed to be almost revealing as Judith's top), crimson skirt, and long white stockings and gloves. Her long teal hair fell from the top of her head in a tail and green leaf green eyes gave us piercing look as she stopped._

_Khroma. Right, she was one of Alexei's advisors, or aide, or some position like that. She was even carrying one of those metal cases the knights used for delivering orders._

_She worked with Alexei...that was why I'd always had a problem with her. I could never figure out _why_ she never did anything to stop him from fulfilling his plans. She was in a position so close to him, she must've known he was aiming for Zaude! She must have realized what would happen when he got there!_

_But, in this form at least, she had done very little. And in her other form..._

_Well, I debated with myself, she was giving Duke help here and there, and trying to deal with the aer on her own. Maybe she was away so often the Commandant somehow hid things from her?_

_Still, Khroma couldn't be blind and daft. So why didn't she do something? Anything? SO many of the people or Entelexeia had knowledge that could have kept things from going so far, but did nothing and left it to Brave Vesperia to bumble through on half formed plans and ideas!_

_I whispered, "Just like I am," and stopped in my tracks. Khroma's eyes, sharp and knowing, felt like they were forcing me to take a good look at myself. If I were to judge her as guilty, was I any less than her?_

_"What are you doing?" Verte had continued walking but looked back when she realized she'd lost me. Khroma's eyes flicked towards the fairy, just for a second, and then she brushed past me, heels clicking on the stone._

_Clasping my suddenly trembling hands over my chest, I could feel Sophia's blastia where it lay hidden under my blouse. She wasn't family. Ludwig wasn't family. Ludwig had lied to me, had taken orders to kill me. I shouldn't owe them anything._

_But it had felt good, thinking that they might have been proud to think of me as family._

_Spinning on the heel of my borrowed boots, I dashed down the hall back the way I'd just come. I bypassed Khroma in seconds, and before long was slamming the door of Alexei's office open. He'd been standing by the world map again, but my rude entrance had him on guard in an instant. If he'd had a sword on him, it likely would be pointing at my throat already._

_"Back so soon, Miss Vitae?" he was smooth, but couldn't entirely hide the surprise in his voice and eyes. "I had hardly hoped. All the same, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from taking my door off its hinges."_

_"Leave Raven alone," I blurted. The Commandant did a better job at it this time, but still failed to completely hide his shock. I knew to look for it, having pressed a matter I knew he believed was secret._

_He therefor played dumb. "I'm afraid I do not understand. I am not acquainted with anyone by that name."_

_"Bull," I spat, "Don't pretend, it doesn't fool me! I'm telling you to leave Raven, to leave _Schwann_ alone!"_

_Eyes narrowed, cold and hard as flint, Alexei approached until he stood directly in front of me. There he stared down at me, making full use of the weight of his greater authority, presence, experience, his natural damned height to intimidate and cow me. "And why, pray tell, should I listen to you?"_

_"He's my friend," I hissed, feeling like my throat was being squeezed shut. "And he doesn't need the crap you're putting him through."_

_The man smirked condescendingly at me. "Doesn't need it? It's the only reason he's alive. Ten years ago, Damuron Atomais died in the war. Even with the blastia I saved his life with, he was a broken man. No one could mistake that for living._

_"But as Schwann he has reason to live," he asserted grandly. "He has new purpose. And if that purpose ever fails him, he has it within his own power to end it! Schwann hardly needs some child to make his decisions for him."_

_"Having a choice between serving a mad man and turning off your own heart isn't the best of options," I growled. "No middle ground? Well that's where _I'm_ coming in!"_

_"And what can you do?" Alexei asked with a laugh._

_"I can take his place," I said grimly. "You want someone under your thumb to keep close to the Child of the Full Moon? I can be that person, just as easily as he can. And I know things he doesn't."_

My hand lifted to clasp the blastia clip again. It still hung on the ragged strip around my neck, tucked under the collar of my gi. It still worked just fine when worn that way, and somehow I was reluctant to wear it openly. The details of the crafted wings felt rough under the caress of my thumb.

_"Follow the pilgrim to the temple of the dawn  
The altar's empty and the sacrifice is gone  
We let the mad man write the golden rules  
We were no more than mortal fools..."_

Leaping without looking indeed. If I'd tried to stop Alexei from using Estelle, Verte wouldn't have let that rest. But Raven, surely she wouldn't mind if he was spared? If his key role in the story was still fulfilled and all, there should be no problem. Alexei hadn't _liked_ the idea, not really, but I knew the allusion to what I _knew_ made it hard for him to turn me down. In the end, he'd made the not entirely committed decision that yes, he'd agree, but if Schwann continued to report to him then Alexei would continue to use the knight captain..

Best I could hope for on that front. Next I would have to talk with Raven himself.

The brief scuffle of feet punctuating the stillness was what alerted me. My attention snapped back to the here and now. There were no allies in Ghasfarost, and whoever that was had been trying _not_ to be heard. I must have been closer to the bandit filled levels than I thought.

As if I hadn't noticed, I continued towards the next stair case down. I even started humming a new song, betting the sound of the previous one was what had given me away. I was a tempting target, almost literally asking for it.

My own humming covered the sounds of any betraying footsteps, but in my new awareness I was watching the shadows around me. And so I saw the one being cast from behind me, but stretching before, as someone tried to jump me from behind.

As I stepped forward my back foot slid so that I was facing the other way, lead foot falling back to join it. Angling my body to present less of a target, I let his kris knife slide by harmlessly and caught his arm to keep him from pulling it back. The bandit didn't have time to recover as my right hand snapped up under his chin and lifted. His momentum forward backfired, sending him toppling back. Two more were in step right behind him, but had to dodge him or get knocked over. One tried to back up, the other darted around his fallen comrade to rush me.

Snatching Phoenix and Simurgh from their places under my gi, I shouted the next part of the song I'd been humming aloud.

_"Accursed the hanged one!"_

Catching the assailant's own plain dagger on the spines of Phoenix, I twisted my own blade to wrench it from his hand.

_"Divine love for free!"_

Bewildered by the sudden loss of his weapon, the man settled for trying to punch me. He shrieked in pain as his fist met Phoenix's crested red spines the way his dagger had. I jerked my weapon back, withdrawing it from the crippling wound, and then slashed him across the face with the tips of the spines.

_"What a fateful night  
And a grateful life  
The choir echoes  
'Every man his price'!"_

The wound to his face wasn't serious, but the scratches had the effect of shocking and partly blinding him as blood from the topmost one ran into his eyes. He stumbled backwards and I prepared to meet the others.

In his fall, the first to attack must have clonked his head against the floor pretty badly. He'd been very slow in getting up, and had one hand pressed to the back of his bandanna wrapped head. The other had gone around him and had been trying to flank me while I was preoccupied. Seeing that I was watching him, he stopped short of throwing himself at me and started circling just out of my reach.

I frowned, he wasn't overly cocky. In a moment at least one of his friends should recover enough and then they would double team me. Or...

My left hand warmed. My eyes flashed down to it before zipping back up to watch the three men I was fighting. It didn't register fast enough when I looked at it, but in my mind I could digest that the black lines on my hand had been giving of fragmented light. _Of all times it could-_

A broad grin of crooked teeth on the wary man's face. He was looking at something behind me.

That was all the forewarning I had, but in a flash of insight I put it together. There was a fourth bandit sneak attacking from behind.

As I realized that, there was a spike in the heat of my left hand. I hissed as it tingled needles, tried to ignore it as I desperately spun away to the side. I had to deal with whoever was behind me, but turning my back on my known attackers wasn't safe at all. I didn't move fast enough. A cutlass arced in a sideways blow, meant to take me across the shoulders (if not behead me entirely), and it cut deep into my upper left chest instead.

Too deeply, a startled part of my mind realized, and entirely unhindered by spider silk or leather guard. It passed through painlessly, and I realized I'd avoided a nasty wound thanks to my permeability again. The spike of heat had passed, but it still warmed and glowed in response to something. _Damn thing, working whenever I don't expect it!_ I snarled, both at the unpredictability of fairy given abilities and at the men trying to kill and rob me.

For their part, they were all astounded that I wasn't dead or terribly injured. The wary one even looked like he was debating the merits of abandoning the others and running, judging by the few backward steps he was taking.

With a vicious smile, I spread both my arms wide and sang out;

_"ONCE upon a time,  
no more words to say!  
Find me in the circle,  
Find me in the end!_

_"I am the soul collector  
Dressed in ebony  
There are no rules  
But only one!"_

And then I laughed, "Who wants to join me in the circle?" Whatever the hell they'd take that to mean, I hadn't the foggiest, but it made the wary one take off for real. His scratched face friend stumbled off after him, nearly running into an iron beam as he tried to wipe the free running blood from his eyes with his unmangled hand.

"Idiots!" the newest comer shouted at them as they ran. "Fine, we don' need ya! Don' come crying when there's no cut in the spoils for ya!"

The one with the kris and the headache had shaken off the damage from his trip. He and the cutlass man seperated, putting distance between them before they both advanced on me. Trying to work together without getting in each other's way.

Frustrated, I shouted wordlessly and grabbed for aer. Wind and water, I snatched both and wove them together in a sloppy pattern. I'd chanced across it when trying to recreate Rita's Freeze Lancer on my own. "Sting them! Ice Needles!"

The threads of aer wove together, creating thin shards of ice the length of my hand in a fanning formation in front of me. At once they all shot forward in front of me. Both men threw up their arms reflexively to protect their faces as the frozen darts sprayed across them. Less damaging then Rita's icicle lances, yes, but it wasn't as easily avoided as her more linear attack.

Taking the opening, I lunged forward and drove the spines of Phoenix into the cutlass man's right side. As he grunted in pain, arms trying to snap down in another reflex to do something about the sharp objects stabbing him, I let go of Phoenix in order to grab his sword arm by the wrist and keep it extended up high where it was harmless. My left hand grabbed him by the shoulder, wrenching him around so that he was in front of me and faced towards his remaining comrade, and then laid Simurgh across his neck.

Kris man stopped and seethed at me.

I didn't try to appeal to his morality or anything with something like, "no closer or your friend dies!" Instead, I smirked at him. "I'm more trouble than I'm worth," I promised. "You could cut through this man to get me, and I still won't get hurt." Banking on the reminder of me not getting cut when I was cut before to freak him out. "So piss off while I'm still willing to let this go!"

"Ya don' 'ave the guts!" the cutlass man gritted. "Or ye'd kill me now!" It felt like a kick in the stomach, realizing that he was right. Like this? I couldn't kill him like this. And the Kris man must have picked that up from my expression as he tentatively began edging forward.

_What now? _I thought frantically, and as my heart thundered with adrenaline...the warmth in my hand spiked and tingled again. _...REALLY?_

"Kill you now?" Shrugging, I said, "Okay," and sawed my blade through his neck. He gargled and went limp in my arms, I almost dropped him. Kris man swore and bolted the other way.

Grunting with the effort, I lowered the man to the floor and looked him over. "Sleeping like a baby," I cooed, touching his unmarked neck. Tough as he'd acted, he'd fainted at the shock of his "death." Simurgh, under the influence of the permeability, had gone through his neck without leaving even a mark. It had worked twice in one fight this time...could the ability have leveled up? The second time was especially peculiar. I hadn't been in any danger of immediate physical harm, but had still managed to use it. Maybe, rather than leveling up, I was gaining more control.

The wound Phoenix had put in the man's side was bleeding more than I thought safe. If he was unconscious and presumed dead, who would take care of it in time? Fishing into one of the pockets hidden in the dark lining of the gi (yes, pockets _inside_ my sleeves when I wear it normally, the novelty delighted me) I found an apple gel.

I pulled the gummie into smaller pieces with my fingers and then forced them into the unconscious man's mouth. If he swallowed it in his sleep (like I had with cough drops and gum in my childhood) then great. If not, then it should still do something for him as the enzymes in his saliva broke down the medication in his mouth so that his body absorbed it anyway.

Satisfied with my good deed of the day I then began rifling through the man's pockets. Robbing the robber? Why of course! Since it was when he appeared that my hand started glowing, then somewhere on him-

-the light on my hand turned blue white as I found a pouch worn under his shirt-

-yep! Inside that pouch was a delicate silver rod capped in a ruby and a sapphire at either end.

I hesitated, wondering if it was a good idea to go ahead with it, as I almost picked up the piece with my left, fairy marked hand.

_Leap_.

My hand closed on it, and I waited for Nevys.

The light from my hand faded, but there was no sign of the monarch themed fairy.

x x x

HO-kay! Was hoping I'd get further along in the events I've planned, but at least I've gotten this far! Everyone who keeps asking how long till the group is back? NEXT CHAPTER. Was hoping to get at least the set up for that finished this chapter, but Verte and those robbers had other ideas.

Damuron Atomais, and the bit of background Alexei mentioned about him, was written based on the summary I've read of _The Empty Mask_, a book about Raven and his history in the war. I would very much like to read the actual book.

And spider silk is true stuff. I was talking with a coworker about how I couldn't decide how to dress Letha next and he brought it up. When I got home I looked it up on the net, just to be sure he had his facts straight. REALLY hard to make a large quantity of the silk, unlike with regular silk worms, and it doesn't help that the female spiders have a habit of eating each other.

"Children of the Moon" is by The Alan Parson's Project, as mentioned.

"The Edge" and "This Will Never End" are both by Blind Guardian.


	59. Chapter 59: Side Quests

__...This time around I actually got emails from readers who were concerned about my well being and/or the future of this fic. (Acekanigirl, your last message made me laugh and dive right back into my editing. I almost fear for my wind elemental self!) No, no, I assure you all that I'm in perfect (or no worse than normal) health and have all intention to finish what I started. If for any reason I _had_ to stop writing I _would_ tell you all, so as long as no announcements like that come from me then never fear.

I plowed through this chapter very slowly since I had to keep checking various details, or going back and changing stuff that suddenly didn't make as much sense as a new idea, and a few times even changing those back again. Oi... :p

There are several new pictures up in my DeviantArt account, even a couple I just now put up, and a few more fanarts in my favorites. Including a picture KatherosLibra drew of Letha in her new costume, which she did quite well without my own reference picture of her up.

Thanks go to Badger for putting up with me rambling and ranting and helping me bounce ideas around whenever we work the same shift. Yes, I'm calling you Badger. It amuses me to do so. And _no_, no "eine bier bitte" in this!

Angelic:

Hooray and hoorah then! You have more valid reasons than I do for the time this chapter took... *Checks dates* Good Lord, almost three months since the last one...

Verte and Letha did reach an odd point in their relationship with each other. They don't particularly like each other (mega understatement on Letha's part), but the fairy decided they need to work together and so work together they shall! It's like how all those times in school when the teachers pair you up with someone you _just can't stand_, and tell you to suck it up and learn to work with them anyway because THAT'S LIFE. And Chase apparently recovered emotionally real quickly and decided the omakes needed to end on a more light hearted note. Al must be a bad influence on him.

(I think the point of the song is more, "I'm so evil even the actual devil respects me!" But hey, I could be a crazy ghost who's considered an honorary member of devilhood~)

Blue Roses02:

Hey there! Love that you love the story and Letha's crazy shenanigans! And that's exactly why I love my lap top so much; back when I had to use the family desk top my mom would regularly stick her head in the room and ask if that was me laughing like mad woman.

And doesn't it fit? I keep finding songs that just seem so appropriate (to me at least) for certain characters, or scenes, or overall themes in the story; a pretty good indication that FTaBV is gradually invading the rest of my brain. Which means that finishing the entire thing will be my only hope for a cure. ;p

ON the subject of songs that fit, Usotsuki Lily (formerly The Fool Arcana) told me about the song Hemisphere from RahXephon...and she is right. It does indeed fit this story really well!

youtube. com/watch?v= 5lYIMq7tqnI

Aaaaand there's this german fancover of "Room of Angel" that I cannot disconnect from Yeager in my mind.

youtube. com/watch?v= vinhrVV3x8E

x x x

Chapter 59: Side Quests

x x x

"Hey!"

"Yes, what can I do for you?"

"I'll take a mandragosso."

"Give me three polwigle dumplings and seafood pasta."

"You know what, instead of the mandragosso, I'll have the rappig steak instead."

"'Kay, I'll be right back with that."

_Before..._

_"This entire discussion is a waste of time." Verte and I were holding a standoff in the wasteland desert surrounding Ghasfarost. The tower was over a mile off in the distance, I actually had to hike that far away before the fairy would even show up. For the time being I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and believe this was due to the amount of iron that had gone into the tower's construction. "I see no point in humoring your juvenile sentimentality."_

_"Well, _I_ don't see why you won't let me! Even if you don't want me to meet up with them, it's not like they're just going to forget about me. Won't it derail your precious plot even more if they take time out to look for me?"_

_"You raise a valid point. However, allowing you to rejoin them in their journey goes beyond preventing that. A brief meeting to establish a parting of ways would be enough."_

Now...

"Clam chowder and spicy shrimp for table one, and two earth spirit parfaits for table three."

"The orders'll be ready in a few minutes, and thanks again for helping out here!"

I marked off the notes I'd made on the palm sized notepad I'd borrowed, "No, I should thank you. Having a temporary job for the next few days really helps me out too." A plate of grilled fish was placed on the counter before me with a clack. I moved it onto a tray along with the amango tea it had been ordered with, schooling my facial expression so that I wasn't wrinkling my nose or something at the rising scent of cooked fish. Jeanne from the costume shop had recommended me for work here, to which I was mostly grateful (_uggggh, my feeeet_), and in part I was working hard so that her helping me wouldn't reflect negatively on her judgement.

"Server?" a call from another table beckoned. The girl at the counter shooed me away to get back to work.

_Before..._

_"You promised Alexei_ what?_" The green fairy's voice was chillingly cold. Frigid, I'd even say. I wondered if my little ploy to soften her up first by handing over the heirloom piece may have failed utterly. I'd already fiddled around with the thing while still in the tower, trying to see if I could make it activate or whatever and give me another magic ability or a power up. The entire attempt was in vain, nothing happened and I had to conclude that Nevys had done something more than just stab me with the last one._

_"You've already made up some kind of alliance with him, I'm just going along with it!"_

_"In no way does it follow that this requires you to actively change the roles-"_

_"It's not like I'm changing the chain of events or anything, there's no vital need for it to be Raven who's responsible."_

_"Nor is there a reason he shouldn't."_

Now...

"So, uh, I've been wanting to ask...the costumes?" The violet haired krityan and brunette human barmaids shared a look that carried undertones of a well worn joke.

"My father's hobby," the brunette confessed.

The krityan woman smiled, "I rather like his taste."

"Dad could make one for you too," the daughter offered, an excited gleam entering her eye.

I could feel the corner of my mouth twitch up as a wicked idea tickled at the back of my mind. "Maybe I'll talk to him about it later." It wasn't the first time I'd considered it, but I hadn't seriously thought it would work out before.

_Before..._

_Verte turned away as if she couldn't bear to look at me any longer, and after a minute of that I thought the fairy was giving me the silent treatment. Letting the subject drop was not good for my goals, but just when I was about to stubbornly bring it up again- "Very well. You're a greater sentimental fool than I thought, but there's no helping it now."_

_The words were agreeable enough, but the cool glare of her jade eyes managed to convey her displeasure with me. "Forcing you to back out on your arrangement with the Commandant now would be disadvantageous, I still need some semblance of cooperation from him. I should expect to have to show some in kind."_

_I couldn't entirely hide the victorious grin that wanted to spread across my face. "To Dahngrest then?"_

_"Yes, you manipulative vixen, to Dahngrest."_

_"You say 'manipulative' like it's a bad thing, miss black pot."_

Now...

With a sigh I sat down heavily on a stool at the bar. It was the second night I was working in the Sagittarius and I had tired out a lot faster than the previous night. But I wasn't going to quit, still stubbornly trying to make up for the money I refused to spend from the allowance Alexei had sent me off with. I knew that in a pinch I'd spend his money just as freely, but I hadn't been backed far enough into a corner that I had to throw all my pride away yet.

It also helped that Jeanne was giving me free room and board. The woman had insisted I stay with her and her son for at least a few nights to make up for not having the job she'd promised me last time open. Not that I'd really expected it, but she'd been my first shot at part time employment upon arrival in the city.

I subconsciously registered the sounds of the door opening and being shut, but wanted off my feet too badly to pay it any mind. Listlessly I dragged my finger through a ring of condensation on the bar counter top, drawing looping patterns, while the brunette, Sally, warmly but respectfully greeted, "It's good to see you again, sir!"

And the krityan, Diana, followed in the next beat with, "You'd like your usual?"

"Nah, I'm jes' here for a drink and ta unwind," a familiar, rumbling growl of a voice told them. That voice had my head rolling around on my neck as I tried to locate the speaker. Finally I spotted him as Don Whitehorse dragged a chair away from a table with a _scraaape_ of legs across the floor and dropped his solid build into it.

Don Whitehorse had always given me an impression of bulk and gruffness, like a bear, but also a sense of understated experience and wisdom not flaunted but all the more valuable. In short, in my mind I'd compare him to an owl and a bear. And, for whatever reason, his snowy white hair and beard reinforced those impressions...

"Hey," a hand waved in front of my eyes and brought me out of my astonished gaping. "Pull your head of the clouds and join us back down here again."

"Wha?" I shook my head and gave the brunette a sheepishly apologetic look. "Er, sorry Sally."

She smiled teasingly. "I know it's not every day you'll see someone so important, but you've still got to work." So saying, she clunked down a pitcher of beer and an empty mug on a tray onto the counter before me. Sally winked, "Go ahead and cut him off when he starts repeating the same old war stories."

"Duly noted," I answered before carrying the tray over to Whitehorse's table. "Let me know if you need anything else, sir," I rattled off the by now familiar words as I moved the pitcher and mug from my tray to the table.

"Wait a minute," the man rumbled suspiciously before I could leave. "Don' I know ye from somewhere?"

I coughed to cover a nervous laugh while trying to unobtrusively turn my head to an angle where my oh so distinctive braid would be less noticeable. "I'm sure I don't know sir. Maybe you've just passed me on the street a few times?" Without waiting another second I scurried off to clear the dirty dishes from another table across the room.

By the time I dropped those off in the kitchen I had calmed down and was starting to think maybe I wouldn't be recognized. "Waitress!" someone called as I came out the kitchen door. One of the men from a table next to the Don's had raised his hand as he tried to get my attention.

"Coming!" I pulled the small notepad and a pencil from one of the discretely hidden pockets of my gi on the way over to the table. I love discretely hidden pockets. Especially the ones inside the sleeves. "What can I get for you?"

The table was occupied by three men, all giving me these really focused looks. "Wh-what?" I took a step back with unease. _What's up with these creepers?_

"Ya know, I really think I've seen your face before," one with a scar over his left eye said.

One of his buddies, a bony man with an angular face, snapped his fingers as he declared, "I've got it! Ain't she the one Gregory and them's loaned their flare capes too?"

"Ha! She is!" the last, a visually unremarkable man, exclaimed. "She an' her friends were the ones what pranked them guests at the inn!"

I sighed, "I've been found out, huh?" And how I'd been hoping people would have forgotten or at least not linked the prank back to me by that point... "The name is...Letha." I didn't want to keep using that name but, as it had just been proven once again, there were already people in Dahngrest who knew me. Might as well stick with the name I used last time.

Whitehorse, who's seat was close enough to hear just about every word, guffawed heartily. "That's how I know yer face! Ye've sure taken a step up in the world from dragging around dead monsters and sitting in jail cells."

Seeing the disconcerted looks passing across the faces of people in the immediate area I winced. "I'd appreciate it, sir, if you wouldn't bring that up in such a misleading way. I was never actually _in_ the cell, just keeping it's occupant company."

"Telling ghost stories if I remember right," the great man chuckled.

"Close enough," I shrugged and returned my attention back to the trio that had hailed me. "Your orders?"

The bony man grinned, flashing a glimpse of a twisted tooth. "How 'bout a ghost story then?"

Cocking both and eyebrow and a hip to the side, I placed both hands on my hips. "Bedtime stories aren't on the menu." All three men broke out in a chorus of disappointed groans and cajoling, with the occasional good natured insult directed at each other. "Look," I tried to speak over them, "I'm working as a waitress today, not a skald."

They looked a bit crestfallen at the defeat until Whitehorse intervened. "Hey, Sal, you don' care if the girl spins a yarn or two, do ye?" He only looked amused when I shot him a nasty look (before I remembered who it was I was glaring at and wiped the look off my face). "I'm a bit curious now myself."

"I can cover the floor for a while," Diana, allowed as her fellow barmaid hesitated.

Sally shook her head but was already smiling. "Fine then. It's been awhile since I've heard a good tale myself, other than the tall ones the oldsters keep stretching further with every telling."

"Hey now," I grumbled, "I never said I would. What if I can't even think of a story?" But the unremarkable man had already pulled up a chair for me where I could see and be heard by everyone. He presented it to me with an over embellished bow that almost made him lose his balance. Resigned, I took off the apron I wore over my gi and handed it over to Diana before I made myself comfortable.

_A ghost story, huh? I'm not big on the horror genre so I'm not sure I remember anything clearly enough_. I filled one of the glasses Diana left on the table and sipped at it slowly. _First that comes to mind is Silent Hill, but I definitely don't know any of those well enough to tell properly. Zombie movies are no good, there's hardly any story to them anyway. The point is always to show the audience something gruesome. And I hate zombies. More or less the same for other movies, like The Grudge or The Amityville Horror... Can I think of anything else?_

The problem with the few things that came to mind was that they took full advantage of modern Earth technology. Visual impact, tension creating soundtracks, and judicious use of eerie background sounds, or a complete lack of any sound at key moments, is what gives them their impact. And the more traditional type ghost stories told at slumber parties also had modern hallmarks, like driving a car at night or getting disconcerting phone calls.

"You gonna start or what?" the one with a scar over his eye prompted impatiently.

I drummed my fingers on the tabletop rhythmically while mentally discarding the thought of using Twilight Zone episodes. Bit too much of a culture clash; the Talky Tina doll, for example, would go over their heads. "Just gimme a few more seconds..."

A few more times I tapped my finger on the wood before making my decision: wing it.

"When I was a little girl," I started casually, "really young, about four or five, I remember we had this doll. It was my mother's doll, and her mother's before her. So the doll was already really old, easily more than fifty years. It was cracked across the face and legs, and half of one of its feet was missing along with the thumb and fingers on one hand. And it stared at you with these really wide, blue eyes."

While speaking, I laid my notepad on the table and made a quick sketch of a small round face, intentionally skewing the proportions to make it look both childlike and a bit inhuman. I took particular care to emphasize the eyes.

"It's no exaggeration to say that absolutely everyone who saw this doll was creeped out by it. My mother was quite literally the only person who cared for it. She brought it home from my grandparents' house and decided to keep it in the hall, sitting in a chair at one end.

"I didn't like that. It felt like the doll was always staring at my bedroom door. But when I told that to my mother she only laughed and actually turned the chair so that the doll was facing my door directly."

"So that's where ye get it from," the unremarkable man said smugly.

I blinked, wondering. _I'm making it up as I go, at this point I don't really remember much about my parents. But I guess I get a large part of my personality and some of my interests from how they raised me, so that would mean..._ I shook my head and tried to smile normally. "Well, like mother like daughter they say." Feeling a sly sense of wickedness, I started adding to my little sketch. Now the doll had a face and a lacy collar that was starting to turn into a dress.

"Being afraid of a doll is pretty silly, but I was just a little kid. I tried to ignore it, but the doll just made me uneasy. So I moved it to face away from my door again.

"Late in the night, I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. When I opened the door to my room, I chanced to look at the other end of the hall." The doll in the drawing had a lap, and I started to rough in a pair of stiff fingered hands lying in it. "The doll was facing my door again. In the near dark, it seemed like those staring eyes were following me as I walked down the hall. It was spooky but I just thought my mother had been playing a trick on me."

The drawing had one complete leg with a lacy sock on the foot, and I had just finished the jagged edge of the broken foot.

"In the morning, I complained to my mother for trying to scare me. She said she hadn't done anything and that I must have imagined it or dreamed about it. I wasn't sure anymore..."

All that was needed to finish the doll picture was to give it hair, but I purposefully skipped that and started filling in the basic shape of the chair it was sitting on. "The next night, I woke up because I thought I heard something."

"Let me guess," the bony man interrupted, "It was the doll."

"Probably," I shrugged and pretended not to notice the smug and slightly bored look on his face as he leaned back in his chair. "I went out to the hallway, but didn't see anything at first. Then I realized: the doll's chair had moved down the hallway, closer to my door."

Bony man snorted, "Heh, predictable." Then he grunted as the scar eyed man elbowed him in the rib.

"Ye asked for it, so shut yer gob til she's done!" Scar Eye's scolding made Bony grumble, but they both settled down again.

The pencil stilled in my hand as I leaned forward, looking Bony in the eye. "Do you want to guess what comes next?"

He glanced at his Scar Eye'd friend and raised his eyebrows, as if asking for permission. The other man huffed a bit and looked away. The third man, Mr. Unremarkable, just sighed at them both. Seeing no objections, Bony shrugged a shoulder while answering. "The doll moves further down the hall the next night, and the next, and eventually she ends up right outside your room. And then next you hear a noise that wakes you up, and she's in your room."

"Bingo!" I made a circular motion in the air with a finger. "It was terrifying! My mother wouldn't believe me when I told her about it since the doll would be back in place every morning, and I was too timid a child to do anything about it." Somebody snorted, an unsuccessfully covered laugh. "Well, I was! I was very well behaved and quiet back then!

"So all I could do was sit in bed and tremble in fear, unable to look away as the doll stood up and began tottering over towards my bed. It kept falling over so it was crawling as much as walking towards me.

"I squeaked in fear when it reached the edge of my bed, and then-although I only took my eyes off it for a second when I blinked!-it was sitting on the foot of my bed." My voice got real quiet and tight as if with remembered fear. Everyone had leaned in closer without realizing to hear better, even Bony looking curious.

My pencil scratched across the paper of the notepad again, finally filling in the lines of the hair. First came the sweeping curve of the long bangs, arcing from one side of the face to be tucked behind the right ear. "And then I heard a voice. It sounded like a little girl's voice, but echoey. As if she were crying from inside an empty room." Waving locks of hair reaching just past the doll's shoulders appeared.

"'My body,' the doll wept, 'Give me back my body!'" Many short and quickly done strokes lead to a braid springing from just in front of the right ear of the doll. I extended it down to the doll's waist. "'I want to be with mommy and daddy again!'" Done, I leaned back so that my chair balanced on the two back legs. The picture left on the table for all to see clearly resembled me thanks to the distinctive hair style, the roundness of the face giving the impression that it was a little child.

"Of course, I couldn't give back such a nice body after all the trouble it took to get," I said in an off handedly cold tone. "Little brat got all weepy though, so I had to break her badly enough that the mother finally just threw the old thing away. Good riddance."

Thirsty from all the talking, I grabbed my glass from the table and took a long gulp. While doing so I glanced over the rim and around the room. The men all had expressions as if a cold draft off air had just blown down their necks, and Unremarkable man had even pushed his chair back away from me. Bony's eyes were darting from the drawing to my face and back at the drawing. The Scar Eye'd man just kept staring at me.

Then, quiet at first but quickly building in volume, we all realized Whitehorse had started chuckling. "Ha ha HA!" he finally laughed outright. "I like that, that's good!" He leaned against his table, wood creaking a bit under his arm, and grinned at me. "You're one messed up kid, aren't ye?"

Quirking one eyebrow up, "Thank you ever so kindly," I accepted his words with over politeness, making him laugh again.

"That was refreshing," Diana said calmly while the trio at the table gave us all pained looks. "Do you have any more childhood stories to share?" _Hey now, what's with that reaction? Are you some long lost relation of Judith's?_

x x x

Feeling heavy with exhaustion, I slumped back against the wall by the door of the Sagittarius. My fingers combed my hair out of my eyes as I sighed. _What do I do?_

While telling more stories I made up on the spot, stories about a little girl trapped in a painting that made other children disappear (actually might have seen something similar to that on a show once) and a spin on the classic "meeting at the crossroads" type of story, the weight had crashed down heavily on my shoulders.

_Don Whitehorse will die soon_.

"Shit," I murmured to myself, hand dragging down from my hair to press against my eyes. "Shit shit shit... What do I do?"

_If I try to interfere, Verte will be furious._

_"I will allow this on one condition. You will ensure that the needed events are fulfilled as necessary."_

"Dammit..." My hand pressed harder against my eyes, as if doing so could keep frustrated tears from leaking out. _Even so, I can't just stand by and wait for it to happen. But even if I can manage to stop it..._

The Don's death would...in the game, it prevented what would have meant the deaths of who knew how many people. A pointless war born of misinformation and manipulation averted. It was arguably the lesser of two evils, the logical sacrifice for the greater good. _Only idealists could believe it's possible to find another option. Maybe there is one; one that let's everyone live. But believing that the third way out is always there somewhere..._ "It's just naive."

"Might I ask what is, meine fraulein?" a familiar approximation of a German accent asked me.

"Cheating death," was my reply, ironic though it may sound concerning the other party. It might have even been cruel, but what did I care? I didn't owe him anything.

He didn't seem all that bothered by it anyway. "It is truly the way of such things, those who seek to escape him are always found by him the soonest."

"And those who seek death cannot find him," I finished with a touch of bitterness. It was then I finally lowered my hand from across my eyes and looked at Yeager. "Are you looking for death?" I asked him seriously, "Or are you trying to run from him?"

The weapons dealer flicked the lock of dark blue hair from his eyes as he archly reminded me, "Hast the fraulein forgotten? With him, I work every day."

Looking away from the man who dealt in assassins and weapons, I tilted my head back to see the glimmering stars beyond the constant glow of the barrier. "'Because I could not stop for Death,'" I recited, "'He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves, and Immortality.'" Then, shaking my head at myself for the trivial things my memory still managed to retain, I pushed off from the brick wall at my back and started walking down the street.

I had expected to leave Yeager behind but the man fell into step slightly behind me and to the side, shoes clicking audibly on the cobbled street. "The fraulein has most heavy thoughts this evening," he commented playfully. "What purpose does pondering the riddles of death serve?"

Stopping in the street, I looked back over my shoulder at him. His own steps fell silent as he stopped and waited expectantly, little more than a dark silhouette in the street lights. There were a few other pedestrians on the street despite the late hour, but none particularly close by. "Why are you here?" I asked.

"I do have a guild, ja. It is natural for the guild's leader to be in the city of guilds."

"Here talking to me," I clarified. "Verte doesn't need you to capture me for her anymore."

"Oh, is that so?" he purred. "So the fair lady finally your acquaintance made."

"Hmph, don't pretend you don't know." I folded my arms across my chest. "So, does that mean you're here on Alexei's orders?"

"My my, and what business would the Empire's Commandant possibly have with me?" he feigned innocence. "Is it so impossible to believe that I merely stopped to greet an acquaintance I met by chance?"

"Yes," I said bluntly. "Given the circumstances of our last 'meeting,' I should say so."

He spread his hands, the shift in posture briefly illuminating his face as he flashed a wounded smile. "Alas, I am doomed to misunderstandings. But I assure you, I had no other motives than such."

"Hmm," I eyed him consideringly. "Fine then. You just wanted to say 'hi.' Since you've done that already, why are you following me?"

Arms dropping back to his sides. "If death came as a brave lady with white wings," he said wistfully, "Then perhaps I would be seeking her out."

"You just wanted to say that?" I didn't bother to mask the incredulity in my voice.

His dark outline shrugged, "It seemed agreeable with the previous line of conversation."

I studied him a bit longer, but found that I wanted to believe him. Even if it seemed weird that he just had a hankering for casual conversation with a former enemy, the man himself was an oddity. _"A brave lady with white wings" is it? That sounds like he means Casey, if I remember right..._ "So what, you're hoping a valkyrie will come for you?" is what I said aloud, not voicing my actual thought. "They come for the slain heroes on the battlefield. I suppose a man who makes death his partner could meet one someday, though I have trouble imagining you'd be a chosen hero."

Playfulness and wistfulness both evaporated from his demeanor, and somehow I got the impression that he was seeing me all too clearly despite the shadows. "We are not so different, you and I."

Frowning, "What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"You don't have respect for me as a human being, because you believe I lack the respect for others myself," he said shrewdly. "I've seen it many times before when others learn of my work."

"I don't-" the protest die half formed, leaving a foul taste in my mouth. _"I don't think like that?" I can't honestly say that. Even if I know a little more about Yeager's background and present circumstances, it's not like I'm an expert on the guy. In the end, I never understood the "why" behind all his actions._ Once he'd been only a character to me; an antagonist to the heroes, but one of the cool ones you cheer for and maybe feel a bit sorry for when his inevitable end comes.

The man standing in the darklit street with me, however, was a living and breathing person. One who headed the notorious Leviathan's Claw, a disreputable guild that thrived on bloodlust and warmongering of others, and never showed a glimmer of remorse for any of the deaths he was responsible for.

"How? How can you decide, 'this person will die' just like that?" I asked, but I didn't really want to know or understand. "Just because someone else has a problem with them, or believes they're in the way... How can you agree to-to do such a thing?"

"For a price," Yeager revealed quite matter of factly. "Every man and woman can be bought for the right prices, ja? Even you, fraulein."

Quick to retort, "That's absurd," I nevertheless felt a sickening jolt in my gut. Gald was gald, it spent no matter how I or anyone else felt about it. The purse full of it Alexei had given me felt heavier only in my mind, and it hadn't even been any integral part of the dealings made with the Commandant. The real price... _"Leave Raven alone!"_

My wavering didn't go unnoticed. "You don't seem so sure of yourself. Every person has their price, and it is never as simple as the coins passing hands, no no no." A finger wagged as Yeager's head shook side to side. "The money is only the means to one's true goals, you know? To put food and drink on the table, clothes on the backs, and roof over the head."

"That's true," I slowly agreed, but already had a guess where this would go.

"It buys silence and loosens tongues too, ja?" he continued slyly. "A poor man would sell out a stranger if it could buy him the certainty that his ailing mother would be cared for. If all it took was a reported rumor, then a small price paid for great reward."

The words "ailing mother" raised a chilling possibility, "Wait, back in Zaphias-you're not talking about-"

"And you, my dear," he continued over me smoothly, "You keep taking and taking, do you not? When my very own men encounter you, do you think of 'how you can do this, make this decision?' Nein, you've your own right price; if it means the safety of you and your friends then you will kill my men again and again."

Even if I could find any words to say, I was incapable of speaking them. My mouth felt dry and vile, like I was going to be sick. In my mind's eye I envisioned Jasper's ice blue eyes, wide in death, and in them reflected all the eyes I'd never seen under the masks of the other Red-eyes I'd fought. Red-eyes, Blood Alliance, Cumore...even a few brigands we hadn't been able to evade.

Yeager had gotten close, was leaning forward to look at me eye to eye. "We all choose something that we place before others, I am simply more honest about what I am willing to do to get it." He was all quiet seriousness. It wasn't more than a few seconds before I broke eye contact first and looked away.

"I-I-" my voice was weak and shaky like I was about to burst into tears, "No, I'm not-not the same. Not the same as you at all!" Not daring to speak another word, I clamped my mouth shut and wrapped my arms around myself tightly. _I don't want to be like a puppet, pulled around at someone's orders until I'm broken and thrown away!_

"Is that so?" the playful tone was back in Yeager's voice. I couldn't help but look back up without thinking. My eyes just caught a glimpse of his expression before his back was turned and the man had started to walk back the way we'd come from. It was like a mask had been pulled over his face, a superficial construction of confidence and vague amusement. He sounded perfectly composed when his voice drifted back, "Then I won't be keeping you any further, fraulein, as I've already given my greetings. Guten Abend~"

In a moment of impulsiveness I called out, "Wait!" Yeager half turned to look back at me, brows rising up as he humored me. My fingers were digging into my arms as I wondered if I was making a mistake. Willing one hand to loosen, I reached down and dug through my small replacement bag of supplies and found what I wanted. "What if _I_ wanted to hire you?" I asked and tossed Alexei's money to Yeager's feet. The gald clinked from inside the thin fabric bag as it hit the stones.

The man was facing me properly now, surprise briefly flickering across his features before turning into a rather pleased smile. "Then your wish," he dipped down into a bow that ended on one knee, "would be my command, fraulein." Sensing that I was being made fun of I grit my teeth in silence, but then he looked up with that smug smile. "But only for as long as you can afford my services."

Unable to help myself I returned a wry smile of my own. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

x x x

The opening of the door woke me up, as usually happens, but my groggy consciousness barely even had a second to figure what was going on before a far too cheerful morning person descended upon me.

"Up and at 'em, sleepy head!" The blankets I'd burrowed under the night before were suddenly yanked away, leaving me curled up and reeling from the sudden robbery of my comfort zone. My cuddly warm blankets! I lacked cuddly warmth without them!

"Jeeeanne, I still wan' those!" I whined sleepily.

The kindly (maybe) older woman I'd first met in the costume shop clucked her tongue at me. "Don't be ridiculous! It's a whole new day and we shouldn't be letting it pass us by!"

"Urgh..." Sitting up, I scrubbed the back of a hand across my face and eyes. "I haven' been good at gettin' up early e'er since all the good Saturday mornin' cartoons went off the air..."

"Begging your pardon?" Jeanne inquired politely.

I shook my head, "Nothin', still half asleep." Fishing my spider silk gi from the tangle of sheets and blankets I slipped my arms through the sleeves. It was an almost indulgent sensation, the near black silk of the interior lining felt so smooth against my bare left arm. Verte might have an odd sense of fashion but she chose good clothes nonetheless. I'd practically had to pry it away from Jeanne's cooing attention when I met up with her a few days ago.

She'd been all for stripping me (to borrow the gi for inspection) and throwing the newly made maid outfit on me (the horror!) for the fun of it, but had reigned in her enthusiasm for her hobby once I told her I was looking for work. Since her son, a man named Clifton somewhere in his late twenties, had recovered from the injuries that kept him out of the store previously, they didn't really need any outside help. Jeanne had offered me lodging instead to make up for it and had given the Sagittarius owner a good word about me.

"Slow to wake up this morning, aren't ya dearie?" Jeanne chided, shaking me form the staring contest I hadn't realized I'd fallen into with the knot in the wall across the room. "Up, girl, up! And get yourself over to the kitchen and breaking eggs, breakfast's running late this morning on your account."

Roughly an hour later (much of which was spent with Jeanne instructing me in the art of omelettes, and I sadly wasted good eggs early on with my poorer attempts) the two of us were sharing small talk at the tiny kitchen table. It felt less awkward than the first morning I'd been there (all other meals I ate out so as not to feel like a total moocher), particularly since Clifton was absent. The auburn haired man hadn't done anything to make me feel unwelcome, but he didn't go out of his way to be friendly. His mother had apologized on his behalf, saying it was because her husband was out of town so frequently, leaving the two of them to take care of the store.

Which led me to wonder why he wasn't around when they'd be opening shop soon. Something to do with why Jeanne kept glancing hopefully at the door or window every few minutes? "So where's Cliff?" I finally asked while grabbing a croissant (fresh from the bakery located the next street over) and started nibbling at one end.

Jeanne sighed and gently placed her tea cup back in its saucer. "Oh, you know how boys are," she responded, speaking as if to another mother and as if the man in question was half his years. "He went out-out beyond the barrier, mind you-with a friend yesterday. Took off from work early and told his poor old ma that he'd be late coming in today. But look at me, silly old thing that I am, expecting he'll come home early and put his ma's mind at ease!" This was punctuated by another glance at the door accompanied by an even heavier sigh.

"You know," I felt obliged to speak up on behalf of the person in question, "he's a full grown adult and is perfectly capable of taking care of himself." The guy was smaller than average, just a few inches height advantage over his mother and me, but I'd _seen_ him carry a full sack of potatoes over each shoulder for a neighboring grocer like it was nothing. I should hope he could handle himself!

"Oh I know, I know sure enough," she hastened to clarify, "Though that'll never stop me from seeing him as my little boy-" the corner of my mouth twitched upwards at "little" considering my own thoughts about his stature, "-and a mother tends to worry. Not to forget he has to look after both himself and his friend. Good lad young Vinny is, always sweet to an old lady, but not the most graceful creature on his own two feet if you catch my meaning." That little piece of gossip imparted, Jeanne picked up cup and saucer again to resume sipping at her tea.

I just fiddled a bit with the chipped handle of my own cup while trying to ignore the craving for hot chocolate. "Bit of a klutz?"

"Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say _that_ much," the woman backtracked verbally, "but one could certainly say so. He's a good boy, after all, and looked up to my Clifton ever since he was old enough to toddle after him wherever my boy went." Another meaningful glance was directed at the door. "But a mother just can't help but worry when her darlings aren't where she can keep a proper eye on them, even if boys will be boys."

With the feeling that I was just finally guessing the right line in a script I'd never seen after hearing the same cue over and over, I suggested, "I could go out and meet up with them if you'd like. See if they're on their way back at least." The tavern wouldn't need me until midafternoon anyway. Although I'd been expecting Brave Vesperia (sans Judith and me) and co. to be arriving in town anytime now. But I judged it unlikely that they'd come and leave town again for good before I got back so it should work out. More productive than sitting around getting nowhere with my Save The World Or At Least Some Extra Bits Of It schemes.

As I thought might be the case, Jeanne was quick to take me up on my offer. She _had_ been the one circumspectly trying to push me towards it anyway. Made all the more obvious by the already prepared satchel she scooped off a stool and dropped in my arms, also somehow managing to shove a folded square of paper into one of my hands.

"What's this? Gels or something? Even if all that 'a mother worries' is understandable, I don't think it's really necessary to-" I got the buckle holding it shut undone and peaked inside. "...Is this a picnic lunch?" _There's...there's even plates and forks and a thermos all packed in here... Do I smell bacon?_

"Brunch, dearie," the meddling mother corrected me. "Boys will be boys, and they'll _always_ be hungry enough for more food. Don't let them eat it all up without sharing." She had me shooed out the door before I'd adequately recovered from the surprise that I was apparently drafted into take out picnic delivery.

x x x

Carrying a satchel of food, particularly food that smells like fresh cooked bacon, through monster infested forests is not what anyone would consider a bright idea. Especially not when there were monsters of the boar variety living in said monster infested forest. Tossing a Wind Blade at the back of another such boar after I dove to the side to dodge its charge, I had to wonder if that smell could be pissing it off at me worse than usual.

The boar squealed as the wind spell connected with its back, pivoting on its stubby legs to blow furious snarls at me. "Nyeh!" I taunted, thumbing my nose up in mockery of its snout. Enraged, it charged me again with the intent to trample squishy human pest under its hooves. I spun on heel and ran the other way, crashing through shrubs and bracken without care. It slowed me down a few hard to spare seconds before I broke through, but I was more interested in what I'd noticed sitting on the other side just before piggy had crashed the party.

Both my hands smacked down palm first on what appeared to be an oddly smoothed and colored dome shaped rock as I literally leap frogged over it, putting it between me and the charging monster. I felt it shudder slightly at the impact before I completely cleared it but didn't stop to look back once my feet touched the forest floor and I was off again. Not even when I heard the smack of boar monster smashing face first into the sudden obstacle.

There was a sharp clacking sound followed by a pained squeal and the commotion of an ensuing scuffle. I smirked; seemed like the monster crab did not appreciate the rude wake up call of a boar in its face. Better not to push my luck though. I kept up the jog until I felt I'd put a reasonably safe distance between the grudge holding pig and me.

"B_zzzzzzzzz_-"

I sighed and this time drew Phoenix, the red spined dagger. Holding it ready in one hand I eyed the oversized beetle monster buzzing around well out of range above my head. Gathering water aer to the dagger I waited for any telltale signs that the monster was about to either fly off and ignore me of swoop in for an air strike.

"B_ZZ_T!" The buzz of its wings cut off as it zeroed in on me and dropped down, stinger-sharp nose first.

"Bend," I finished weaving together the aer threads and secured them around the blade of the flower-made dagger, "Water Whip!" With a flick of the wrist the spell formed lash unfurled and snapped its tip against the bug, swiping it out of the air and shredding its wing. With satisfaction born from hitting it the _first_ time, I dismissed the water whip technique before it could drain my focus (and aer tolerance) any further and finished it with a simple swipe from the dagger.

Resheathing Phoenix on my hip, I leaned against the nearest tree to take a breather. Fishing inside the interior pockets of one of my sleeves, I pulled out the folded paper and smoothed it open. A map of the area south of Dahngrest's walls had been sketched on it, complete with distinctive landmarks. If I did it right, I had cut through a small section of forest until I hit one of the branches of the river, and if I followed that I should eventually reach the one spot on the map that had been circled. Or, if I'd gotten myself completely turned around somehow, right back outside the forest again.

_In the tradition of video games, this would probably rank as "optional side quest" for unlocking rewards or bonus features. Probably taking place in a level or dungeon previously unaccessible and unknown, or maybe just empty until the prerequisites had been fulfilled. The hand drawn map would reveal the before unnoticed path needed, and, of course, I'd be able to see a little red arrowhead or something indicating my position in relation to where the crap I'm trying to go_.

Oh, little red arrowheads (and your yellow arrowhead siblings, and white pointer finger cousins), how I failed to appreciate you before!

I _thought_ I was going the right way. I couldn't see the river through the trees since it had gotten too difficult to walk along the bank, but I could still hear running water nearby. As long as that stayed to my left then I should be on the right track.

Another fortyish minutes along and something that had been growing in the back of my mind was really getting to bother me. There weren't enough monsters. Other than some more of the occasional bug monster, there was a marked lack of any of the bigger more worrisome boars or lizards, or even the rare crab thing that had wandered away from the water. Not that I'd been expecting a whole troop of monsters waiting to challenge me; I'd be happy to take them on one at a time and far in between (or let them fight each other, like Porky and Crabby earlier).

There was also a new smell in the air. Fragrant and sweet, almost sickeningly so. The way it seemed to be getting stronger indicated that I was heading towards the source.

"B_zzzzzzzzz-_"

I had both daggers in hand in a second, ready to fight. I needn't have bothered, it flew past in as near to a straight line as I'd seen any of them take. The hum of its wings faded as it disappeared back into the foliage ahead.

"-_zzzzzzzz..._"

_That was a little weird_... That it had been flying towards the smell seemed a bad sign...but it was the direction the map indicated and I wasn't about to detour around and risk getting lost without the nearby river as a point of reference.

Keeping Phoenix and Simurgh in hand, just to be on the safe side, I started forward again a bit more slowly and certainly more cautiously.

Trying to keep my noise down to a minimum, I picked my way along the game trail cutting through a thicker belt of trees and crumpled ferns. My bad feeling seemed validated by the cadence of urgent voices I was starting to catch. Coming out on the other side of the treeline, I stopped before stepping out into the clearing proper and felt my eyebrows fly up in surprise.

There was a giant flower. No, not just giant, massive. Gargantuan. Some exotic remnant of the dinosaur age. Its velvety looking petals were each the size of a _door_, or at least as wide as one if not as long. They were a deep wine red darkening to near purple near the broader base and speckled all across with orange spots. It had no stem, the blossom sitting directly on the ground itself in a bed of fuzzy looking leaves. Roots spread out from under the leaves and snaked across the entire clearing, not digging underground but clinging to the surface. There were also piles of pale sticks and moss dotting the area, lying on top of the systems of roots.

The mystery of the perfume in the air was solved. It was so strong I could almost taste it on my tongue with every breath. Like a sugary aftertaste.

It was impressive enough to hold my attention for a few heartbeats before I ripped my eyes away to look beyond the flower. That was where the desperation tinged curses I'd been hearing was coming from.

I crept a few sidelong steps until I could see past the monstrous flower and finally spotted them. Two men; one sitting, the other bent over, and both appeared to be...pulling up weeds? Or something? The bending one looked like Clifton, reddish head bobbing around as he worked. As I watched he yanked out a hatchet and began hacking away at whatever on the ground had earned their wrath.

No longer concerned that I might be walking up to a group of strangers who, in the worst case scenario, could be more bandits, I stepped out to walk across the clearing and join them. I couldn't help but step on the sprawling network of roots to do so; there were hardly any gaps large enough for one of my feet to fit inside. "Cliff!" I hailed them.

Hatchet pausing in its swing just long enough for his head to shoot up and bark, "No! Don't come any closer!" I stopped, startled. "Get away from the flower, now!"

Still bewildered by the harsh rebuff, I could still only react with confusion when something squeezed my feet lightly. I looked down and immediately jerked backward. The flower roots had been creeping up the sides of my shoes and wrapping themselves around my feet and ankles. Thin as threads, they snapped at he sharp pull from me trying to jump back, but the number of them made it too hard to just break them all off at once. Some of the thicker ones still clung and were quickly winding further up to my calves.

Having failed to make a clean break resulted in me falling backward. The moment I landed more roots started climbing up whatever came into contact with them. I shuddered in revulsion at the crawling sensation across the backs of my hands.

"Hey! Let go! _Let go!_" The flower roots ignored my outraged demands. Growling, I tried to pull my hands away-I needed at least one hand! In my frustrated anger I almost missed that the tingling in my left hand wasn't being caused by the roots. When I realized it was independent from the crawling insect feeling I tried to focus what I could spare of my attention on it. _These roots are trouble. I need to get away from them, __**now**_.

The warmth had barely begun to spread across the tattoo before I was scrambling away from the clutching mass of roots, leaving them to slump over in a tangled mess. I ripped my daggers up from two smaller bundles of roots before the shortlived warmth and permeability slipped away again. But it was enough.

With no further plan than "Don't Stand Still Long Enough To Get Caught" I ran across the root trapped clearing. My feet didn't make contact with the ground long enough for the roots to start climbing them, but I didn't dare run in anything but a straight line. Even slowing down the fraction a sharp turn would take might be enough to trip me up. I didn't stop until I reached the safety of the treeline, one hand smacking against a trunk hard as I tried to stop myself before I face planted into the rough bark.

Only sparing myself a second to catch my breath, I ran along the perimeter of the clearing until I was as close to the trapped men as possible without venturing back onto the roots.

Cliff was forced to stand in one place, roots twining up his legs to his belt, and had either abandoned or lost his hatchet. With his bare hands he was trying to pull fistfuls of roots from his friend. The poor fellow looked more like a squat, lumpy cocoon with little more than his curly dark hair peeking through.

The image brought to mind _The Hobbit_ chapter in which Bilbo had to rescue the dwarves from the spiders' lair and could only identify the web wrapped dwarves by the hoods, beards, and long nose tips poking out. _Ah!_ I realized. _The flower is just like a spider! It sits in the middle of its web-the roots-and waits for prey to come close! The sweet smell probably helps it attract prey within an even greater range._

Spiders know when their web has caught something by the vibrations that travel through the threads, or something like that. Likewise, coming in contact with the roots alerted the flower. Ergo, if there were no roots...

_I miss Rita and her great balls of fire_, I couldn't help but think as I gathered up wind aer. Using less than usual for the formula I shot a Wind Blade along the ground towards Cliff and his friend. It reached three quarters of the way, slicing a thick line through the roots in its path. Encouraged and more confident in my calculations, I charged up the second Wind Blade with more aer and got it within two feet of them. Three more and I had cleared a narrow path between us.

By that point I'd gotten Cliff's attention and he had caught on to my thinking. "They'll start growing back right away if you don't burn them!" he warned.

"Clock's ticking," I grunted as I sprinted out towards them. _Really wish Rita was here, or that I had some worthwhile fire techniques!_ Too bad the only one I'd gotten to work reliably required a dao.

Skidding in the dirt to stop before ramming into the guys or careening back into the roots, I joined Cliff in his efforts to yank pieces of roots off of his friend. "He's not moving!" I was worried to discover.

"He passed out not long after you got here," Cliff informed me tersely. "The roots start draining you after you can't get away."

"What about you?" His own cocoon was crawling up his chest by this point. He also looked discouragingly pale now that I was checking for adverse signs.

"I'm tougher than Vince, I can hold on longer." As if to prove the point he began putting more energy into the work.

But even with our combined efforts we weren't making any headway that the roots didn't undo within moments. "Dammit!" I hissed. _Even if I could use fire for more than lighting candles, I wouldn't be able to use it for fear of burning someone along with the roots. My daggers would help more but probably injure them, and I simply don't have a lot of time to work with before the roots overgrow that path. Come on, there _must_ be something else! What kills a plant?_

A moment of inspiration had me laughing out loud. I grabbed a double handful of roots this time but didn't pull them away, ignoring how they started to grow over my hands as I concentrated on both the threads of wind and water aer around us. The weave I threw together was amateurish and incomplete; another one of my attempts at replicating Rita's Freeze Lancer, an earlier one than the Ice Needles. "Chill them to the bone," I intoned, "Frost!"

Numbing coldness gathered in my hands, and then they seemed to marginally warm as the cold spread out from my hands into the roots I was still holding. Gritting my teeth through the cold I held on and concentrated on channeling more water and wind into ice and pushing it further into the roots. At first nothing happened, then miniscule crystals began to form on the roots, and then they weren't so small. The roots almost seemed to crackle in my hands as the water in them froze.

And most important of all, they had ceased spreading.

Once I'd frozen the roots all the way down to where I thought the guy's-Vince's-knees were, I started snapping the roots off again. They came off more easily, especially since they weren't replaced within moments, and Cliff's increasingly fumbling efforts were still a great help. Together we uncovered the unconscious young man. He had dark toned skin, but at the time it was displaying an ashen pallor that was _not_ a good sign at all.

Cliff shoved his friend onto my shoulders and I staggered at the added dead weight. Shifting Vince so that he was better situated I glanced over at Cliff. He was covered to the shoulders and neck. I reached out to try and use Frost again but he knocked my hand away clumsily. "Go," he wave a hand at the disappearing path I'd come in on. "I'll be fine for now, get Vince out of here."

"But-" I bit off my own protest and nodded jerkily. It was mostly bravado on Cliff's part, but it had a regrettable logic to it. I wasn't capable of carrying both men back and he was too weak to walk out under his own power. And time was ticking away.

Stumbling, I hadn't gotten nearly as far as I would have liked before I could feel the roots catching at my feet again. Desperate I once again grabbed at wind aer, but this time I didn't even take the time or effort to shape the threads to a formula. I just bundled them all up behind my back and tugged them so that they flew forward. A sudden burst of wind sprang up at my back, speeding my steps and for a moment almost carrying me with it. Just like walking to classes on a day with amazing lake effect wind.

I nearly reached the edge of the danger zone before a good sized root managed to wrap around an ankle and trip me. Unable to stop myself from falling, I landed with the full weight of the unconscious Vince on top of me and blew most of the air out of my lungs. Mentally cursing, I doubled over until I could slash at the roots around my feet with Phoenix and then finally pulled Vince clear.

Frantic, I looked back for Cliff. _Good Lord, only his hands are left!_ It was downright _creepy_ to see a humanoid shape of roots massed together with clearly human hands. At least he didn't seem to have passed out like his friend: the root swarmed figure was still shuddering, as if he were trying to shake it off.

My impulse was to run right back out, but I had to do something about Vince first. "Hey!" I tried shaking him but couldn't rouse him. "_Hey!_ I don't have time for this!" Just a few threads of water aer and then I was throwing a handful of water in his face. He spluttered and dark eyes flew open as he sat straight up and then wobbled with vertigo.

"Ugh!" he grunted as one hand flew to his mouth. "What happened... Cliff?"

"Needs help," I answered curtly, shoving one hand into a pocket and pulling out gels. I pushed the apple ones at him as I ordered, "Can you do anything? Artes? Fire? Ice?"

He was staring over my shoulder in shock, no doubt at Cliff, but at least was with it enough to take the medication and answer, "No...no, I'm no good at fighting. Cliff always looked out for me." There was horror in his dark eyes when they stopped looking past me and at me in instead. "Please! You have to do something!"

"Working on it," I grunted as I stood up. "If you can find a way to make yourself useful, great."

"I-I'll-" he rolled onto his feet and almost careened forward, "I'll go look for help!" Before I could say anything (like, "there's nobody else out here in the middle of nowhere") he stumbled off deeper into the trees. Not wanting to waste any more time I left him to it and readied myself for Operation Root Rescue Take Two.

"Wind Blade!" I yelled out, and groaned aloud when the cutting wind attack only made it halfway. "Wind Blade!" I was already running back onto the half formed path, bringing a handful of orange gels to my mouth and practically gulping them down whole. "Wind Blade! _Wind Blade!_" Once I reached Cliff's side again I outright slammed my hands into his chest. "Frost!"

The ice came more slowly this time, every inch I forced it further into the roots felt like a battle on its own. As soon as I could I started removing the roots from his head, shoulder, and right arm. "Long time no see," I quipped distractedly once he could see and hear again. Cliff didn't bother to respond to that, already trying to claw off whatever his freed arm could reach.

My head was starting to swim from all the aer I'd used. I couldn't even see clearly what my hands were doing, and the flower's perfume seemed to be filling up the inside of my skull. Breathing was hard.

So hard that taking another breath was all I could think about.

It really was a sweet smell, it made me think of maple candy. Syrupy flavored sugar that melted on the tongue.

Crystallized syrup...

Crystallized? Ice crystals.

Shaking my head, I muttered the incantation for frost again and concentrated on getting us out of the mess we were in. "C'mon, Cliffie boy," I urged the man, noticing his efforts at freedom had nearly died off while a glazed look had entered his eyes. "Snap to it 'fore I decide it's easier t' wake you up by freezin' yer nose off."

Apparently hearing my words and reacting to them, he shook his head and then groaned. "When I get s' hammered?"

"Prolly jus' 'fore I did, Cliffhanger," I slurred back and frowned at how incoherent we sounded.

"I think I needa si' down..."

"Nod an option righ' now." The roots still had his legs locked in place after all. I stopped casting just long enough to jam two more gels into my mouth.

"Uh hey," Cliff(ord the big red doggy...) sounded worried.

"What, sumthin' loomin' up behin' me?"

"There's somewhat 'n yer legs."

Blinking in confusion for a second, _My pants?_ I eventually looked down at myself to figure out what he meant. Roots had crawled up just past my knees. "Snappity snap." I was positive the situation warranted some more colofrul language but "snap" was all my brain was up to providing. "Wha' now?" _**Leggo!**_I tried to recreate the earlier trick of passing through the roots, but my tattoo wasn't playing ball this time.

A shout of "Cliff!" had me confused all over again. _That wasn't me talking..._ "Can't you guys do something?" _Who do what now? I'm already doing my best, m'kay?_

"-annihilate the vulgar before me! Spiral Flare!"

A veritable wall of fire roared into the clearing, thankfully nowhere near Cliff and me although I could feel the wave of heat wash over my skin. The roots it blew over were all crisped in its wake, and then the flower itself was engulfed. A magnificent bonfire for the grand finale.

"Oooooh..." I watched the dancing flames in awe.

A familiar voice spoke up, "What are you guys waiting for, an invitation? Get moving!"

"Can't, my good sir," I answered sardonically, recalling myself and resuming my work Frosting the roots still stubbornly holding us in place. My head felt clearer now that the flowery perfume wasn't muddling my thoughts. "My feet seem to be quite enamoured with this patch of ground." Yes, that was all me snarking at inappropriate times and no more flower induced tipsiness, sad to say. I scraped up what wind and water aer was left, most had already been used up or dispersed by the rush of fire, and tried to bend over so I could reach Cliff's knees.

There was a heartbeat of silence broken by an incredulous, "_Letha?_"

Turning my head barely enough to flash back a twisted half smile, I avoided actually looking Yuri in the eyes. "Didja miss me, farmer boy?" From my peripheral I could see a collection of colorful shapes that was presumably the rest of the gang hanging back where it was safe.

An irritated sounding growl showed he was not amused. "Whatever's wrong with your head will have to wait until later." The singing of a blade cutting through air followed-_what is he doing?_-and the words, "Destruction Field!" preceded a shock wave of energy, bits of fire licking through the aer, which tore through where the roots binding us were attached to the ground. It seemed they'd been doing more to keep me standing than I had thought. I was sitting on the ground and wondering when I'd gotten down there.

"Upsy daisy," another voice came from nearby, and I was just in time to enjoy the sight of Chase wrapping an arm around Cliff and slinging him up over one shoulder. Seeing that the man I'd been trying to help was in good hands, I could finally focus on myself. One last blast of Frost on my own legs, and then I ripped the roots away from my knees. There were still some clinging to me like leeches, but fortunately they weren't tying my legs together. I could run. If I could stand.

A hand was proffered to me. When I took it, a strong pull had me up on my feet and steadied. It also made me look Yuri directly in the face for the first time. His expression was serious, mouth forming a grim line, but when he spoke what he said was, "You didn't think you'd get rid of us before telling us what happened to the Serenity, did you?"

Relief made me feel weak in the knees and a choked laugh escaped me. "Took a short cut. Thought I'd kill time until you guys finally showed up. I've got a lot of stories to share now." His eyes warmed slightly. All was not forgiven, but I hadn't lost the chance to sit down and talk it out with everyone.

x x x

Ugh, Yeager, why do you always make me feel worse about my understanding of the characters and their speech patterns? And my increasingly rusty German?

The verse Letha recites when talking with Yeager was the first from Emily Dickinson's poem, "Because I could not stop for death."

Guten Abend = Good evening.

...Letha has had an odd sort of luck in which she consistently isn't present for boss battles. Oh, she hasn't missed all of them, certainly not. There's been plenty of fights tougher than the run of the mill encounter. But I thought, "What the hey, I'll invent an original boss fight of sorts. It'll be more interesting than having her sit in the entrance to Dahngrest and waiting for them to arrive every day."

Cookies to anyone who caught the song reference I snuck in there, and cake to anyone who got the nostalgic reference to my childhood. ;p


	60. Chapter 60: To Hell With Fate

Okay, I'm back. FINALLY.

I got really fed up with this chapter. REALLY. UNDERSTATEMENT IN CAPS.

It makes me want to cry thinking how it's been a year (and another month, almost). I really was working on it throughout the entire year. Rewrote the damn thing from scratch at least three times, plus there's a bunch of documents scattered all over my folders full of all the stuff I wrote and then cut out but thought I might salvage later or maybe not. And even more I outright deleted. Probably wrote about five chapters worth for this chapter alone.

What I actually decided was to hold this chapter back until I had another one or two down so that I'd be sure I wouldn't write myself into a corner and realize too late that what I had planned wasn't going to work out at all. So that means I have the next couple of chapters ready once they're edited a little bit. I won't put them all up at once, but you won't have to wait so long to get the next installments. I think...yeah, I'll wait maybe a week, certainly no more than two, before putting up the next chapter. I tend to lose track of what day of the week it even is so I'm not gonna promise a specific day, just that it won't come out before next Tuesday. If I really lose track of time and it takes more than two weeks, someone throw a shoe at me.

On another note...I like the TV Tropes website, and occasionally go to the fanfic recommendations to, well, find some recommendations. AAAAAH! Fairy Tales and Brave Vesperia is there now! A big THANK YOU to Tropers/Gryfo! (Was that two separate people or one? I know one of you followers goes by the name Gryfo, and now I'm making an ass of myself but THANK YOU!)

Oh dear, and there were fanarts I was kindly gifted with even if I didn't deserve them. Honestly can't remember which ones I've linked to in previous chapters (and that's my own damn fault).

From KatherosLibra (she drew it for me as a present for my 22nd birthday, now I'm a couple months shy of 23...):  
katheroslibra. /art/ Birthday-Gift-For-Sylph-314347991?q= gallery%3Akatheroslibra %2F26742950&qo=5

From MyDarkSideHasAWayOfHerOwn (aka Temari, who seems to get awful hyper from talking with me):  
thet-chan. /art/ Letha-Vitae-Skit-Faces-325768007?q= gallery%3Athet-chan% 2F33542727&qo=34  
thet-chan. /art/ Chase-Browncoat-Skit-Faces- 328347021  
Aaaand a bunch of other things that can all be found in my favorites, but these are skit faces she kindly made for me! (And for some other SI OCs, I would recommend checking them out!)

*Coughs* Here I'd normally respond to all the anonymous guest reviews like Angelic (Goddammit Badger, _you're_ lucky it's been a year!)...but it feels a bit awkward after a year of silence to answer a review that was possibly even forgotten by it's poster. I'm sorry guys! D: I try to answer all reviews, but for the ones without an account linked for a PM it's kinda hard when you're wrestling with a block. Felt bad for the guests who were expressing concern about me that I couldn't even respond to.

Ugh, super long author's note/apology needs to end now. Just one last word to apologize about how this chapter gets caught up in a lot of talk despite me taking the editing hatchet to it repeatedly this year.

x x x

Chapter 60: To Hell With Fate

x x x

I had been anticipating a very awkward reunion, to say the least. Butterflies practicing aerobics in my stomach covers my feelings on the matter, more or less. It came back full force as I was lead by the hand to where the others were waiting (or; Estelle was hovering with concern over Vince while half of her attention was fixed on us coming towards her, Rita was enthusiastically burning things, and everyone else was uneasily dividing their concern between us and the fire happy mage).

The excitable butterflies got even more worked up. Some had even started flying up through my chest to get inside my skull. The sudden dizzy spell made my footsteps stumble as I tried and failed to draw in any deep breaths. _Whuh?_ For a moment I thought that some of the flower's muddling perfume was still fogging up my head. I tried to stop and stand straight-and found myself gasping as the world around me swerved and I could only see treetops and a patch of blue sky-

-and then the view had changed. Trunks and branches and verdant growth were passing by, but out of one eye I could only see brown. And I could feel warm leather under my cheek. _I'm moving? Oh, I see._ This was familiar. I was riding on Chase's back, just like when he carried me away from the Red-eyes mess _last_ time I was around Dahngrest.

I couldn't see anyone from my vantage on his back. Keeping still, I listened for the others. Up ahead I could hear the half muted tones of several people talking. Arguing, rather. From what I could make out, concerned parties aka Estelle and Vince were trying to convince Cliff to stop for a break. And Cliff was insisting it was better to push on back to the city before stopping and never mind the blood loss.

Oh. Right, those roots had been sapping strength from us somehow. It wasn't just some gaming abstract of lost HP points or anything; they'd been literally sucking the life, or more precisely the blood, from our bodies. I'd been too caught up in the adrenaline and urgency to really think about it or notice. _Uuugh, vampire plant..._ That on top of its sweet smelling perfume...and I'd been burning through aer trying to cut and freeze stuff all morning... _Wow, no wonder I blacked out for a minute or two. Or three. Or...you know what? Never mind how long_.

From a point just above the top of my head came Chase's voice, low in volume but more than close enough for me to hear. "You awake?"

"No," I mumbled into his shoulder. "'M sleep talkin. Keep carrin' me." My lazy bones didn't feel like working. Okay, that was a lie. It was actually...that it just felt good and safe to be holding someone. Especially since I wasn't sure when the last time had been, or when the chance may ever come again. Even if I was still angry with him, on principle if for no other reason.

Not that it really mattered. "If you can sleep talk, then you can sleepwalk," Chase declared as he loosened his hold under my knees and let me slide off of his back. I had to get my feet under me and stand or fall ingloriously to the ground.

"The chivalry. It boggles the mind," I grumbled halfheartedly, rubbing at my left arm (it was tingling as if feeling had been lost and was returning) as I took a better look around.

Clifton and Vince were not only up ahead, they were in the lead with Yuri. It seemed as if the group was relying on the locals to find the way back to Dahngrest. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere after all. Estelle was in step just behind them, talking with Vince about something that made her smile, while Rita stuck to her side with a disinterested look.

"Hey! She's up!" That was Karol, the Ace bringing up the rear with Raven and, huh, Harry was with us too. No sign of Judith, not that I'd held much hope that she'd stick around after all...

"Raven..." I scolded, "That isn't yours."

The old archer had evidently helped himself to the packed brunch that had sent me out there in the first place (Estelle was carrying the actual satchel). He only shrugged a shoulder and stuffed the rest of a sausage wrapped in a bread slice into his mouth. "No one else wanted any."

Having been alerted by Karol's exclamation, the others had stopped in their tracks and come back to gather in a lopsided circle around me. _Oh shit_. I stopped rubbing my tingling arm and instead pulled it in close, hand wrapped tight because I needed to hold onto _something_. _Dear God...I wish this was over already_.

Repede came out of the brush alongside the trail we were following, giving me a minor heart attack before I recognized him. I suppose he'd been scouting further ahead for signs of monsters.

"So that was a nice trick," Yuri started benignly enough. "How do you jump ship in Nordopolica and still get here before us?"

"Umm, hopscotched across continents?" I offered lamely, shoulders hunching up. "Er-it sounds like bull when put that way, but..." I glanced around at Chase. "How much have you filled in?"

"Only the basics," he supplied. "Earth is another world, no aer, humans only, except for the fairies that sneak in and abduct new helpers now and then. Coca Cola and Cinemax theaters weren't on the top of the list, but I might have mentioned how much I miss them at some later point. I forget." He blinked innocently at the flat look I gave him.

"Half the stuff he says doesn't make a lotta sense," Raven complained to me. "Makes ya kinda wish he were still pretendin' to be a regular guy." I decided not to point out that, to me, he still sounded like a regular guy. Just like anyone else I could have met from Earth. Even if he had managed to keep remarkably silent about any Earth references before.

Yuri cocked his head at angle, giving me a look that seemed to be trying to go right through me. "So, you have one too? One of these fairies who comes in and bosses you around?"

_As good a place to start as any, I suppose_. "Yes," I answered dully. "I...'met' Nevys unexpectedly...and was immediately pulled in over my head. Currently I'm stuck in some annoying feud between fairies; Nevys and Verte. And I don't even know how you and Alastor fit into it all," I directed the last towards Chase, "but I'm getting pretty fed up with not knowing anything."

"Wow! Who would have thought being kept in the dark is a _bad_ experience!" Rita snarked with vicious sarcasm. Oooh, making up with her wasn't going to be easy.

I sighed, "Alright, I can understand you being upset with me and I don't blame you for it, but bringing it up earlier-"

"No, back up." Clifton had interrupted me, bringing the collective attention to him. He leaned with his weight supported against a tree-possibly the only reason he was still standing-and wasn't really a part of the circle. Vince looked a little lost standing between us and his older friend. "What are you even talking about? Are you actually saying that-that _those_ two-" one hand waved in the direction of Chase and I, "-aren't even from this world? That's just impossible!"

This was met with uncomfortable silence. While I was trying to think how to even begin explaining to the near stranger, Harry was surprisingly the first to speak. "It does sound impossible, when you hear about it. And there's little proof that everything they claim is true." _Uh, wait, are you on our side or one of the disbelievers?_ The blond man was unfazed by the frowning stare I was giving him. "However, there isn't any way to prove it _isn't_ true either. All that can be said for certain is that their circumstances are definitely unusual."

Clifton and Vince both stared at him, dumbfounded. It was one thing for a bunch of strangers to be talking about crazy stories, but hearing something (almost) supportive from the Don's own grandson must've been hard to compute.

Man, made me really wish I wasn't going to say what I was about to.

"Well," I cleared my throat and studied the leaves on a nearby branch, "I hate to say it, but that's actually not the most unbelievable part."

"There's more?!" Karol gaped. There was a shine to his eyes that suggested he wasn't entirely adverse to the shocking developments, at least from the perspective of childish wonder. I mean, I was under the impression that most boys his age thought the idea of meeting aliens would be the coolest thing ever.

Chase raised a finger, "Uh, you sure?" I shot him a glare of, _Don't you dare start with me_. "Okay, your call..."

"Don't see how it can get any crazier than it already is," Raven added. Chase coughed.

"Back home, on Earth," I paused to take a deep breath and then finished all in a rush. "We have, um, something called video games. Kind of an interactive form of story telling. And one in particular is called 'Tales of Vesperia'."

"Tales of...Vesperia?" Estelle repeated, as if wondering if she'd heard wrong. And the others were exchanging uncertain looks. Her legs gave out and she sank to the ground, bright eyes rising up to fix on me. "'Interactive story telling?' Letha, what are you saying?"

I bit the inside of my cheek before pushing on. "It tells the story of a certain group of people, starting with when a certain man tries to catch an imposter that scammed the Lower Quarter people out of their money and an important blastia. And ends with the, um..." I momentarily considered vaguely mentioning space cephalopods and Empire State Building sized feathers. "Uh, let's leave that as a surprise."

Yuri shook his head. "Whoa, wait, let me get this straight. Everything that's happened, everything since we met you...you already _knew_ it was going to happen?"

Rita was shaking her head and smacked her hand to it. "For crying out loud, isn't there anything remotely _normal_ about you?!"

"Not anymore, I guess. And as for what's happened? Much of it..." I answered them in turn. Oh, better to cover all the bases. "Uh, plus the events in Shizontania a couple years ago, thanks to a prequel movie..."

"Sounds to me like there isn't much ya don't know," Raven said with suspicion. With the calculating and not entirely pleased look on his face, I imagined he was most likely reevaluating how I'd learned of his identity as Schwann, and what else I may know about his situation. Yeah...well...

I could only shrug at him. "I only know as much as the game covers. Any deep dark secrets that _weren't_ dug up over the course of the plot? Well, they're still dark and deep with me none the wiser."

"What about you?" Harry asked Chase. "How much of-of all _this_ do you know?"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this..." Clifton muttered under his breath, but still audibly. "Has everyone lost their minds?"

Sheepishly Chase supplied a shrug of his own before answering Harry. "Not a whole lot? Just some stuff here and there... The part about Shizontania's news to me, I only know the rumors that went around when it happened."

Whitehorse's grandson wouldn't let it go at that, "But you both knew about what would happen to the Duce, isn't that right? Wasn't there something you could've done to stop it?!"

The rising note of desperation in his voice made me pause and take a good look at him before answering. Harry...didn't look so good. He had bags under his eyes and the rims were red. And while I couldn't say for sure, he seemed paler than he should after a week at sea in the sun.

"You...you did try, didn't you?" Estelle said slowly. I looked around at her quickly and saw understanding dawning in her eyes, turning into a complicated expression that worried me. "Chase showed up just in time to help Belius with the Hunting Blades...and you," she looked up and met my eyes. "You stopped me from using my powers to heal her."

"Estelle..." I tried to say, but didn't know what it was I wanted to tell her. Even if it had been necessary, the confused and hurt look in her eyes when I pointed my sword at her couldn't be forgotten so easily.

"If you hadn't stopped me, what would have happened? Would I have...to Belius-"

"You didn't though," Chase derailed that train of thought. "So what 'could' have happened doesn't matter." Then he began to address the entire group again. "Yeah, we both tried to change things, and we did. But in the end it wasn't much different than the outcome we were trying to prevent."

"Does that mean...whatever we do, it's already been decided for us?" Karol asked, eyes wide and white as ping pong balls at the thought. The novelty had vanished from his eyes. "Does it even matter what we decide to do, if we just end up doing what we're supposed to anyway?" Harry looked up sharply at that.

I crossed my arms and blew out a breath before saying, "Look, things like 'fate' or 'predestination' are no reason to shirk the responsibilities for your own actions. Thinking it doesn't matter even if you made a bad choice because you were 'meant' to make that choice anyway is ridiculous. Your choices are only determined by the person you _are_, and the person you are depends on the choices you make!"

"I already said things changed, didn't I?" Chase added a bit peevishly. "Just because this time it turned out to similar ends doesn't mean there's no difference at all. Sometimes changes happen and they're _big_, and sometimes you don't see the difference until much later."

"Alright," Rita started, and she seemed to radiate challenge. "If you know so much about what's going on, why don't you tell us what the deal with Judith is? You knew she was the dragon freak all along, didn't you?!"

I had to roll my eyes at that. "Is this supposed to be some kind of test? Not that effective if you don't know the answer to the first part yourself and I've pretty much answered the second already. Yes, I did know about her as well as why she's doing it, but no, I will not tell you."

"Why not?!" her voice squeaked a little. "She's been destroying blastia! Did you ever try to stop her from doing that? We almost got stranded out at sea because of her!"

I unfolded my arms in order to spread them helplessly. "I can't help that I already know this stuff, but I'm not about to start sharing everyone's personal secrets behind their backs. If you want to know about Judith, you need to ask her yourself and see if she'll tell you."

Raven rubbed his chin. "But ya do know, so that means it's one of those 'deep dark secrets' that'll come up anyway?"

I pursed my lips in annoyance. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Anything can change. Please don't try to fish for information on the future, I don't plan on giving it out anyway."

"What? Why not?" Karol whined, actually disappointed. _Kid can't make up his mind whether to be appalled or not_. Maybe he was hoping that having a living cheat sheet would be like a hack that could skip us past the scary bits.

"I thought this bothered you, now you _want_ to know?" Chase teased him.

"Well-no-I mean-It's scary to think someone else is in control of what we do, but I don't get what's wrong with knowing what'll happen to us?" His brow furrowed as he considered the possibilities. "I mean...isn't it better to get ready in advance, before something bad happens? Or we could even keep it from happening!"

"Even if she told you something like, 'a giant meteor will be on collision course with the planet and there's nothing you can do to stop it'?"

"Wh-what?! Nothing? Are you sure?" the poor Ace was actually panicking.

I swatted the back of Chase's head. "Stop trying to scare him. That's another game entirely. Holy ate the meteor anyway."

Yuri shook his head at that. "You guys have some weird hobbies in your world..."

"This is ridiculous," Clifton growled. "I can't believe I put up with listening to this shit as long as I have. _She's_ insane," he flung a hand in my direction, "he's just as bad," Chase was implicated, "and the rest of you have to be soft in the head to be considering this!"

"Hold on now," Raven objected, "That's being a bit too harsh-"

"It's the truth!" Clifton shouted back at him. "And for both you and the Don's grandson to be taking this crap hook, line, and sinker, I can only think that Altosk must be on its way out!"

Faster than I thought the old man could move (his repeated complaints about his age must've been brainwashing me), his arm shot out and he grabbed Clifton's collar, pulling the taller man down and close.

With a not so friendly smile, the older archer said to Cliff, "Now, I'm not one to pay much mind when someone's talkin' bad about me. But I'm not gonna let it slide if someone says it about the old man or his family. And the whole guild is his family, far as I'm concerned. We clear?" The shock hadn't entirely passed yet-this was a bit more ballsy than we were accustomed to from the old man.

The redheaded man glared back at Raven. Vince rushed over and grabbed Raven by the arm, but it was to his own friend he "Clifton, that's too much..." The red head turned his eyes away and mumbled something.

"Glad to hear it." Raven let go of his shirt, Clifton stumbling away from him. Vince reached out to support him.

"C'mon, Vince," he growled, ignoring the rest of us. "We're going back."

"But-"

"_Now_, Vince!"

Dallying only long enough to collect the picnic satchel from Estelle, another bag he'd apparently brought with him, and give us all one more quick word, "Thanks for your help. Don't worry, I'll talk to Clifton," Vince ran off to catch up with his departing friend. Almost tripping over three different roots on the way. _I hope...there's actually a good side to Cliff that I just haven't seen, or else I feel real bad for Vince following him around like a puppy_.

"We should get moving too," Yuri finally said, when the two were barely visible through the trees. "Dahngrest won't get any closer if we keep sitting around here, and we can keep talking as we go."

"Right..." Estelle nodded weakly, and then held up her lightly fisted hands as new determination sparked in her eyes. "You're right! And we shouldn't let those two get too far away, it could be dangerous if they're attacked again!"

Rita tsked her tongue, "Who cares if they are. Would serve the red haired jerk right. Call _me_ 'soft in the head,' ungrateful bastard..."

x x x

Having my bag returned to me was another upside to the roller coaster ride of the morning. It had then been followed by Estelle and Karol apologizing, but they had all looked inside and found my stuff from Earth. "It's alright," I made myself tell them, stiff although it sounded. "I can't say I'm surprised. Anyway, I probably would have shown you that stuff if you didn't believe me earlier. About the Earth part, that is."

"So, I want to be sure I've got this right..." Karol was the first who's curiosity got the better of him, antsy at the silence that had fallen as we walked, everyone individually trying to absorb the new revelations. "You and Chase are aliens-" _Oh em gee_... "-who travel outer space and call yourself Earthlings?"

I missed my footing and almost faceplanted a tree. "Chase!" I gasped, "Chase, why did you tell them to call us that?!"

"What?" he got defensive. "The Child of the Earth thing was getting weird! It sounded so...pompous. And we _do_ call ourselves that. What sci fi movie's complete without the aliens trash talking about how feeble or war minded the Earthlings are?"

"We're not _in_ a sci fi movie! Now I'm gonna feel like I walked onto the set of a Star Trek or something!" Never mind that I'd been privately using the term myself. That was just a convenient distinction, not one I was actually fond of.

But I had to stop talking and concentrate on taking deep breaths for a few seconds until the lingering lightheadedness from overdoing the aer and fighting passed again. It didn't help that Chase held up one hand and made the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" V-hand sign. Being able to laugh at anything in the middle of all this honestly pretty good, even if I felt short winded.

Rita's thin patience snapped. "Would you both knock it off already!"

x x x

_**Space Operas**_

_Chase: Hey, there was something I wanted to ask you before I forget all about it._

_Letha: What? You too now?_

_Chase: Relax, it's nowhere near as big a deal as all the other stuff._

_Letha: Fine then. Ask away._

_Chase: What's the deal with this Serenity thing they keep talking about?_

_Letha: Huh?_

_Chase: And that kid, Karol, even asked me if I'd ever been on a spaceship._

_Letha: Heh. How 'bout that?_

_Chase: How did you even tell them about all this stuff without revealing you're from another world?_

_Letha: The glorious magic words: Plot Device._

_**Strained**_

_Letha: Hey, Rita, I've been wanting to talk to you about-_

_Rita: Estelle! Wait up a minute!_

_*Rita runs off and leaves Letha behind*_

_Letha: -some spells...I... Okay then. Maybe next time..._

x x x

I sighed. When she wasn't deliberately ignoring me, Rita kept shooting these little glares at me. It was like she was torn between straight up giving me the cold shoulder and the need to give me another verbal lashing.

The next time I caught her at it, I said, "Rita, if you're that determined to burn a hole through my head, why don't you give up using will power alone and just use fire ball already?"

A split second of that wicked grin warned me that I'd said the wrong thing.

"FIRE BALL!"

"Ack! Champagne, CHAMPAGNE!"

x x x

_**Jumpy**_

_Estelle: Oh, there's something over in those trees! Is it a monster?_

_Repede: Woof!_

_Letha: Hiih! *Startled*_

_Estelle: Are you okay?_

_Yuri: Take it easy, it's just Repede._

_Letha: I-I know that! That was nothing, I just-I almost tripped, that's all!_

_Yuri: Hey, calm down. No big deal._

_Letha: I am calm, I already said it was nothing._

_Yuri & Estelle: ..._

_Repede: Whine!_

_**Flashy Style**_

_Estelle: Letha, if you don't mind me asking..._

_Letha: It's the day of questioning. Ask away._

_Estelle: It's just that none of us recognized you right away in those new clothes. You look really different in them!_

_Letha: What, is that a good thing or a bad thing?_

_Estelle: Oh-I didn't mean-_

_Letha: No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by that. This looks flashier than my other clothes, but it might actually be more practical. It doesn't get damaged nearly as easily and provides better protection than you'd think to look at it._

_Estelle: Where did you get them?_

_Letha: ...Ugh, from someone I'd rather not think about._

_Estelle: ?_

x x x

Conversations were brief and stilted, or at least, they were whenever somebody tried to talk with me. Chase was the only one who I could actually talk with comfortably, although there was the uncomfortable feeling that one or two (or all) of the others tried to listen in every time we did. I had to wonder when someone would finally start up the Big Questions again. I was sure they still had plenty left on top of a whole mountain of new ones; perhaps, in light of everything so far, they were trying to figure out just _how_ to ask those questions.

Tired of waiting (I'd had more than enough of worrying myself sick before this, I wasn't going to let it keep getting drawn out now that we'd come to it) I picked up my pace until I was walking up near the head of the group with Yuri. Conscientiously I looked for Repede until I could mark where he was ranging in and out of some undergrowth not too far away. I was not enjoying having nervous attacks whenever the dog popped out unexpectedly. Dammit, he didn't even _look_ like the fairy dogs or Cù Sìth!

"Something eating you?" the swordsman asked.

I repressed a small wince at the turn of phrase (the bite scars weighed heavy on my mind) and said, "You haven't had much to say about this so far."

"Well," a shoulder rolled carelessly, "You already said it."

That made me blink in surprise. "Beg pardon?"

"You know, that speech about how we're responsible for our own actions, and to hell with something like fate." A slight grin tugged at the corner of his mouth when he noticed me staring at him. "I only do what I decide to do, and I'm man enough to stand by it no matter what happens. It's fine by me if you don't want to share anything about what's going to happen."

"There's no guarantee it'll happen the way I expect, anyway," I had the need to explain once more, defending myself. "I have no way of knowing if I'm wrong and something has already changed. If everyone was over confident because they _thought_ they already knew what was going to happen and then it turns out I was wrong...it could go very badly."

"Fair enough," he allowed, "though I didn't ask. What bothers me about this is that you're having trouble with some high and mighty fairy creeps and never told any of us about it." Yuri gave me an unimpressed look. "You're not being a team player if you don't share your problems with the rest of Brave Vesperia. 'All for the guild, and the guild for all,' right?"

"Right," I said with a small smile of my own. "I guess we'll both have to work at that."

With a self deprecating laugh, he admitted, "Yeah, guess I haven't been that great at sharing my own issues either. You knew all along about Ragou, and that guy in Mantaic...and Shizontania, huh."

My mouth thinned as my lips pressed together. Talking about past events should be fine. "Ragou, yes, but in Mantaic it was supposed to be Cumore."

"Really?" he glanced at me in surprise, but then looked pensive. "I meant to get Cumore, but it was some lackey of his in his place. I actually forgot about it when I went after him to try and find out where Cumore was, but I left my sheath behind that time... But it turned up in my room in the morning."

I nodded at the questions left between the lines. "Another small change, completely on accident. And then I spent days worrying over the whole fiasco. It doesn't seem to have made much difference either... Not in the big picture." No, not a big difference. The blood was just on a different person's hands was all.

A hand clapped on my shoulder, and I shot a look at Yuri. He didn't say anything, but the gesture didn't really need words.

...Pretty sure everyone was listening in behind us. There was no conversation going on back there, and what few words were being exchanged had died down when I started talking.

...It made me want to mess with them.

"You know, the game company that produced Tales of Vesperia, along with a bunch of other games, has an annual popularity poll. You beat out the long time champion for first place."

"Yuri did?!"

"Impossible!"

"How unexpected!"

"Him? Really?"

"What, whaddabout me?! Ain't I popular?!"

And Yuri looked at me suspiciously. "Are you making this up?"

I smiled broadly and winked. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

x x x

We were in sight of Dahngrest's bridge when Raven piped up to ask, "Since we're almost there an all, are ya both _sure_ there's nothin' ya wanna share? No heads up or anythin'?"

"I've been working at the Sagittarius for the past few days while waiting for you guys," I informed the group at large, despite knowing perfectly well that wasn't what Raven meant. "I'm supposed to be there again today, and I'm probably running late. So, you can all meet up with me there!"

"Hey!" Rita shouted in protest as I sprinted away, but I only spun mid step to wave back at them. Clifton and Vince had been ahead of us the whole way back, but they were only at the bridge themselves by that point. I managed to run past them (Clifton growling something unpleasant as I did so) and thankfully got ahead of them on the way to Jeanne's place. I wanted the time to get my things together and say goodbye to the crafty woman before her son came home and threw me out.

With the temper he was in, I wouldn't be surprised if he would've thrown my stuff out on the street if he got to it first.

I didn't tell Jeanne about it though, just that the friends I'd been waiting for were arriving soon and thanked her for her hospitality. I tried to pay her with some of my earnings from the tavern but she wouldn't hear of it. ...I left some gald coins under my pillow instead, while stowing the few possessions I'd acquired into my returned bag. Thankfully, I managed to leave just before Clifton got back, though I saw him coming down the street as I hurried off to work.

Once at the Sagittarius, I threw on my apron and quickly got to work bussing tables. It was still early enough in the day that business wasn't too heavy, and at the earliest opportunity I told Sally, her father the owner (_"What a shame, and I had nearly finished working on a uniform for you"_), and Diana that I wouldn't be staying longer and may need to leave early. Bony and Scar Eye from the other night were back again, arguing about something, but when they overheard that it was my last day they started pestering me to tell more stories.

So when in the early evening the others came to find me at the tavern, what greeted them upon opening the door was this:

"'From this day forth, I shall be called the Handsome Monkey King! And the word 'stone' is forbidden in my kingdom!' All the monkeys agreed to their new king's decree, and they played happily in their new home."

There were snorts of laughter from the guildsmen who I'd been regaling with more stories. "'Handsome Monkey King'? What kind of name is that!"

"Makes more sense than a monkey being born from a rock! Even if it was a rock full of powerful aer!"

That was when I realized they had come in and were watching me with amusement. I had one foot on a chair and was flourishing a broom in a grand pose. I blushed when I saw their smirks.

"Well, what's got everyone here in such a good mood?" Yuri wondered offhandedly, glancing over a shoulder at the men. Repede was at his heels, I almost missed him but caught sight of his tail passing behind a table. (_Didn't jump. Good_.) Estelle, Rita and Chase had also come in, but that was all.

I coughed and returned the chair to its table. "Adapted another Earth story for some fun. Very convenient that you guys believe in monkeys as some kind of fantasy creature."

"Oh, yes, I remember reading about them in fairy tale books back in the castle!" Estelle recalled happily at the nostalgic reminder.

Rita rolled her eyes, "They're not real, some idiots probably just mistook a monster they saw and thought it was something else." Chase and I glanced at each other but had to immediately look away before either of us started laughing at that.

I made a show of looking over the group again. "Some people are missing..."

"Raven went to report to the Don," Yuri supplied, though a raised brow silently questioned '_do you really need us to tell you?'_ "He took Harry with him, and Karol tagged along."

I nodded, thinking that sounded about right. "And? What are we planning to do next?"

An uncomfortable tension sprang up. I deliberately used "we" when forming my question, and waited to see how they responded. The childish urge to cross my fingers for luck under the cover of the countertop surged up.

Rita blew an exasperated air out, ruffling her own bangs with the force, before slumping on the counter and grabbing a glass of water I poured out. "Fine, if you're not gonna give any hints, we're probably going to track down Judith so I can give her a piece of my mind! By the time we find her, I might even be finished chewing you out!"

An involuntary smile of relief flickered across my face, and Estelle smiled warmly in return. "First we think we'll give Belius' apatheia to the Don for safe keeping. We think she would have wanted it that way."

"The Knights and the Hunting Blades would have their work cut out for them to get it away from that old man," Yuri added off handedly. Then he turned to Chase. "What about you? Isn't it about time you disappeared again?"

"Yuri!" the princess scolded him.

"Hey," he defended, "it's what he's done every other time we ran into him. Shows up for awhile and then leaves all of a sudden."

For his part, the greatswordsman had been wearing a troubled face ever since coming into the tavern. "I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing, but I'll be staying here for a few days at least. It's been awhile since I was in touch with Al so I don't know what he's doing either."

My eyes narrowed. "Is that all you do? Run around playing fetch and following orders like a trained dog?"

He frowned at the return of my animosity-I had mostly mellowed out and been decent to him over the day, so maybe he'd thought he was off the hook. "I'm not like that! Sure, I help out when Al and Sybelle ask, but over the last five years they've left me a lot of freedom to do what I want."

"Sybelle...?" I repeated. _Wait, I know that name, don't I?_

At that moment the tavern door opened again. I'd developed the habit of looking up to check every customer that came in, so I observed a heavy set man with a purposeful look that suggested he was there on business and not to relax. He strode up to the counter to speak with the krityan barmaid, Diana, since she wasn't surrounded by a group of people. "I'm looking for a woman called Letha."

She greeted him with familiarity, "Dillan, you haven't been by lately! Letha's right over there." ...Hopefully she knew him well enough that she pointed us out only because he wouldn't cause trouble. Then again, I wasn't sure if I was liked quite well enough to merit being actively looked out for by the staff.

Dillan thanked her briefly before approaching us. "I was sent to bring you and your friends to Altosk Headquarters," he informed us. "Master Raven asks that you come right away."

"By Raven?" Chase shot a puzzled look at me and I could only turn up my hands in response. It seemed something else was in the process of changing, and my guess was no better than any as to how it'd turn out.

"Did he say what for?" Yuri asked.

The man only shook his head. "Masters Raven and Harry locked themselves in a room with a young boy and a stranger I haven't seen around here before. No one else has been allowed in, and I was just told to locate all of you."

"Wonder what that's about," the swordsman murmured under his breath.

"Well let's stop wondering and just go find out," Rita declared.

x x x

_Oh my GOD, the last thing I expected was this!_

We'd been brought to a private audience room where Raven, Karol, and Harry were all waiting. Karol was practically vibrating with nervous energy, constantly fidgeting and shooting stares at the fourth occupant of the room: a tallish man with freckles and bright cherry colored hair, brighter than Clifton's, wearing a long overcoat that seemed to shift from dark blue to dark purple whenever he moved. He'd come without his glasses.

"You!" I all but screeched, hands raising up and stiffening partially curled fingers like I was about to claw his eyes out. "Bloody pick pocket, _give my wallet back!_" Grudges, yes, I keep them. But we knew that already, no?

"Sorry to say, he's never been above the occasional theft," Chase wryly put in an undertone to the others.

Alastor ran a hand through his already unkempt hair, pacing on the far side of the room past a few chairs with faded upholstry. "What a nice welcome after I spent all this time trying to figure out where in this blasted world you had both run off to. Chase haring off to sea, where not even the most fool hardy would risk appearing without advanced preparation, and Miss Letha popping in and out all over the place." He favored us both with a put out look and braced both hands on the back of a chair, and now I saw that he was pale and haggard looking. "Then what finally works, but the last ditch effort of _waiting_ in the middle of a city for you all day? Half the people here carry weapons and armor wherever they go! It would not surprise me to learn they sleep in arms! The only worse place is that hideously desecrated tower!"

"Al," Chase broke in, "This isn't Shakespeare. Stop monologuing."

"I'll monologue all I please," Alastor retorted, "or else I'll tell Arcas you eloped without introducing the charming young bride to your parents."

The highly unorthodox threat drained the blood from the Earthling's face. "You wouldn't!"

"Just see if I don't!"

"Give me back my cards and _ID!_"

I only got one purposeful step in towards Alastor before Raven blocked my way and gestured for me to calm myself. "Whoa, darlin', settle down! We should just hear him out first."

My teeth bared in a feral mockery of a smile. "Oh yes, of course, and he can start with explaining just why he freaking _robbed_ me!"

"Would you give that a rest already?" Rita snapped at me querulously. "Who cares about that right now, there's more important stuff we should be worried about!"

Yuri glanced at me as he commented, "No offense, but she's right. We don't really have the time to settle a grudge over petty theft."

I folded my arms and drew in on myself defensively as I flushed with embarrassment. "It's-it's not _petty!_ Not really! I wouldn't give a damn if it was just money!" It might have been for the best, in a way, that he removed some conspicuous objects of Earth origin from my possession. I had lacked the resolve to throw them away from the start, even if they could've gotten me into some hot water. But that risk would've been an acceptable price, in my current opinion, if only I still had just one of my cards.

Alastor apparently guessed the pattern of my thoughts and gave an acknowledging nod. "My dear, I humbly beg your pardon for my larceny," he even dipped a small but definitely courtly bow. "I assure you, I acted purely on what I believed a necessity to protect you and your True Name."

"Huh?" Karol frowned and looked between me and the fairy man in confusion. "True name? What is he talking about? You're Letha, aren't you?" Raven and Yuri, however, seemed to have the rough idea based on my earlier confessions of memory loss (including my own name) to them, and were both giving Alastor looks of renewed suspicion and appraisal.

Alastor released the chair back folded his arms, one finger tapping against his upper arm. "Your charming friend here is caught within the nexus of several complicated spells, woven by one of my folk. Some are quite blatant to those who know how to look-and admirably strong in their casting, I might add. Others are delicate and so intricate that even I have inadequate knowledge of their uses; I can only guess at their purpose." The tapping finger stopped and pointed upwards as he made the point he'd been leading up to. "One of the key spells is tied into her True Name and then warps into an unusual configuration... Well, in the simplest of explanations, a substitute Name was inserted and any usage of the original True Name results in interesting effects."

This "explanation" served to prompt nearly everyone in the room to exchange looks, as if asking if anyone else understood that at all. Rita, however, had unabashedly marched right up to me and scowled as she inspected me from head to toe after the "those who know how to look" part. I couldn't help but take a step back from her fierce eyes.

"What do you mean she's a nexus? I don't see anything like that in the aer!" She glared challengingly back at the fairy.

One of his shoulder's shrugged. "You don't know how to look. I never said it was constructed with your aer."

"Is that so? Well then, why don't you tell me just what your 'folk'," the corner of Alastor's mouth twitched upward at the way the mage said that last word, "use instead of aer?"

The fairy's smile broke out in full, white teeth that weren't entirely straight, and he leaned forward towards us. "Fairy magic."

For once Rita and I were perfectly in tune with each other's desire to punch someone in the face. It's too bad neither of us were close enough to actually get a good hit in, and that the chair was between us and him. But I'd already been chastised and Estelle's proximity seemed to hold Rita back.

Harry evidently had enough with it all. "If you're all done, can we please move on to the actual reason for calling you all here?" he reminded us with clipped tones. Rita huffed at Alastor before turning away with crossed arms and an angry look that was more like a pout. I bowed my head without saying a word, closing my eyes and concentrating on breathing slowly to calm myself. _In for a count of ten...hold... Out just as slowly and hold... Ichi... Ni... San... Shi... Go... Roku... Shichi..._

One part of my mind remained focused on breathing exercises from Aikido while the rest of my mind listened attentively to the rest of the room.

Raven took charge, "Alrighty, that was interestin' to hear and all, an' I'm sure we'll be wantin' more on that later. But right now we've got a small problem on our hands: the Don's gone missin' an' no one seems to know where he went."

There were simultaneous exclamations of surprise from everyone. "Where could he have gone? Especially without telling anyone?" Chase mumbled from nearby me. He didn't know? _Hmm...guess he meant it when he said he didn't know much. Although I can't say I'm positive, since I'm pretty sure this is playing out differently..._

I cracked my eyes slightly in order to watch as I asked, "I just want to be clear; he was gone before you got here, yes? You haven't seen him nor passed on any report on what happened in Nordopolica yet?"

His customary at ease posture and expression were lacking as Raven seriously answered me, "Not at all. Seems no one's seen him since some time this morning, before we even got here."

"So what's the big deal?" Yuri shrugged. "The old man felt like going out, and didn't feel like sharing. Bad timing for it, but-"

"'Bad timing' is severely understating the issue, Master Lowell," Alastor interrupted. His fingers steepled together as he leaned on the back of his chair. "I am essentially aware of the situation here, and can reliably inform you all that the ships of Palestralle and her vengeance seeking men are not far from arrival. What are you to do when your city's leader is gone and ignorant of the situation?"

There was something of a recoil that went through the late arrivals in the room; Repede had started growling enough for both himself and Yuri, Estelle's hands reaching up to cover her mouth as her eyes went wide, Rita's hands balling up in fists, Chase scowled as he began to rub at his temples with one hand. Raven, Harry, and Karol all looked mostly unchanged, which was concerned to start with, so they'd already been aware of that nasty aspect of the way all the pieces had fallen.

"Al..." Chase groaned, "And you couldn't have stopped him from leaving? You said you've been here all day!"

The fairy's gray eyes closed as he spread his hands and sighed. "I came in unannounced and no more noticed than I wanted to be. One such as I doesn't make a habit of extending greetings to those who hold no interest for me, not when my errand lies elsewhere. I was entirely unaware of his departure until recently."

"He just popped out of nowhere in front of us," Raven described to us. "Sayin' he recognized the kid an' me as Letha's friends, and that he wanted us to get her and Chase to come here."

"Y-Yuri... Everyone..." Karol looked at us with pleading eyes. "What do we do?"

At that, Harry grabbed at his own head with both hands. "At this rate, there could be a war between the guilds! If only my grandfather were here."

_If your grandfather were here, he'd run off to try and give Yeager an ass whooping for being an unscrupulous bastard. And then come back to martyr himself to prevent a war_. I huffed a short breath, still resolved to try and keep that from happening, somehow.

"What if everyone just talked it over?" Estelle suggested. "If we explain the situation, I'm sure they'd understand."

Raven rubbed the back of his head tiredly. "Sure, we can try an talk to those Palestralle folks when they arrive. But I don' know if they'll be listenin' to anything we have to say to them after losin' Belius. Anything we tell them will just sound like an excuse. At best, we can probably buy some time."

"Time for what?" Rita demanded hotly. "You guild idiots just keep looking for trouble, what good does dragging it out longer do?!"

"Buying time to look for Whitehorse, right?" Yuri guessed, holding one hand palm up in an "is that so" kind of gesture. "You want to ask us to find him, right?"

"Sorry to spring this on ya, Altosk should be taking care of its own problems," Raven apologized, "But at a time like this, we can't risk havin' our guys lose their heads in a panic."

"Isn't there anything else?" I murmured quietly, greatly troubled by the events bearing down on us. "Stalling for time and bringing back the Don... That's hardly a solution. Even for him, subduing the wrath of an entire guild isn't _done_-" I snapped my fingers for emphasis, "-just like that."

"If ya have any suggestions of yer own, we're all ears." When I looked up at him, Raven was wearing an expression of such blatant expectancy, I thought for a moment that he was trying to clown around again. But this wasn't the time for the usual play and banter, and the old man had been demonstrating his capacity for serious rationale and consideration since we arrived.

_He's not taking this lightly. Regardless of any pretenses he joined the guilds under, he still tries to do right by them_. Well, if he was trying to hide some other thought or emotion behind that face, he was welcome to do so. I had other puzzles to worry about. Most likely he just thought (hoped) I had some prior knowledge that said things would work out.

"Unfortunately," (_no good news_), "I'm not that great with politics."

"Come now," Alastor was freakin' _this_ side of purring! It was creepy and worse than his default smugness! "You've been popping in and out all about for the last week, and yet you haven't been putting some semblance of a plan in order?" When I tried to slip a hateful glare at him without getting another scolding, I was caught by the cold gray of his eyes. A challenge was there and I wasn't sure if it was friendly or malicious, his claims to have been "protecting" me aside. "If not, then please forgive me but I must ask; what _have_ you been doing?"

Yes, ask a question I _don't_ want to answer, why don't you. While I wasn't adverse to letting it be known that Verte had been the one skipping me around continents, there were certain details about the past week I didn't want to share. Not yet. I had things to do first.

I forced myself not to look away as I replied, "Trying to keep myself from getting killed by fairies and monsters. What about you?" I looked from him to Chase. "You say you've been here, what, five years? What plan have _you_ come up with?"

Chase rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. "Well, like you were probably thinking, it pretty much consisted of 'Don't let Belius die in the first place.' And as insurance to try and keep a botched assassination attempt-you know, instead of the successful one we have on our hands-from raising trouble with the guilds, I had some forged letters and stuff that was supposed to make it look like Cumore was behind the Hunting Blades' attack. I was actually in Mantaic trying to either get him to sign it without knowing or get my hands on something with his signature so I could copy it myself."

My mouth had fallen open. And I wasn't the only one staring at the seemingly honest and upright young man in shock.

"You're one sneaky bastard, aren't you?" Yuri said with some amazement. "I don't know if I should be impressed or worried about what else you could be up to."

The Earthling shrugged. "Well, there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong with that plan, but I was hoping whatever came up could be dealt with at the time. I _would_ have tried to prepare more, but some unexpected recent events kept us pretty busy. Anyway, it's no good anymore."

"Why not?" Karol asked. "I mean, it's not really right to use tricks like that, but I mean..." The Ace looked awkward and frustrated as he tried to figure out the words for what he wanted to say. "It's not right, but if it keeps people from getting hurt, maybe it's not so bad either?"

"Verte is a bitch," Chase answered, voice cold and sharp. I blinked, _That's what he said back in Nordopolica, isn't it?_ "I dunno why she did it, but she destroyed the papers. And there wasn't time to prepare new ones."

"Arrrgh!" I threw my hands up angrily, not even sure what I wanted to do with them. Wringing a fairy neck seemed a nice option, but everyone else had already put Alastor off limits.

"Who's Verte?" Estelle posed the question, looking from Chase to my not so subtle reaction. "Is she another fairy?"

"She is a _bitch_ fairy!" I seethed. _She destroyed the papers that were going to shunt all the blame off onto Cumore, a man who'd be dead by this time? And then she went and ruined the effort Chase and I both made to protect Belius, even bringing Flynn into it to make sure the Duce died_. All I could guess for why she'd do all that was her goal to have the game follow its preset plot accordingly to raise Zaude. With as little risk of setting that chain of events off track as she could manage.

_She wants to raise Zaude because she thinks pieces of that heirloom are inside, right?_ I aimed a suspicious glance over at Alastor. _If there's even one piece inside, or just the possibility of one, then shouldn't all these fairies be trying to get inside there, no matter the means?_ If so, then what was Alastor up to? I may not know him well, but he didn't seem to mind if changes were made along the way. Unless he was cleverly sabotaging anything Chase did behind the man's back. But my fellow Earthling seemed to have faith in his own fairy bastard, so was he being a fool? Or had I become just that biased and untrusting?

There was a time when having a fairy for a best friend would've been a dream come true for me. Wouldn't know it to see me now.

"So simply put," Harry spoke for the first time in...wow, when had he last made a contribution to this debate? I had never given him much thought before meeting him, and apparently still didn't if I could keep forgetting he was around. But my overlooking him didn't mean the young man hadn't been listening and thinking on his own. "Even if you truly know what's about to happen, although you refuse to share what that is other than it is something you both wish changed, you have no suggestions for what we should do next."

Ah man, put that way us Earthlings really were making a lame showing of ourselves.

"Plan A's a bust, and plan B is pretty much to wing it," Chase admitted, not sounding so proud of the fact himself.

"All I've been able to think of," I said with reluctance, "is to try and buy time and talk with the members of Palestralle. Hopefully find _something_ that can satisfy them without having to resort to war." _Or more dead authority figures_.

"In that case," Raven decided, "Findin' the Don is still our best bet. Though that's easier said than done."

"If I may," Alastor piped up, all politeness. "If you would be so kind as to lend me a personal belonging of the Don's, I may be of some assistance. A map of the area as well, if it isn't too much trouble."

That earned the fairy some curious looks and questions, but he only smiled mysteriously while Harry called in someone to fetch what he asked for. While waiting, Alastor sat himself down in another chair before the long conference table dominating one side of the room. He reached into a pocket of his blue-purple overcoat and withdrew a fine silver chain with a tear shaped crystal fastened to one end.

"A personal object, a map, and a pendulum?" Estelle listed, eyes focusing on the distance as she apparently recalled something. "Wait, I've read about something like this. Are you going to use dowsing?" I blinked, realizing I recognized the technique the princess was referring to. _Er, more or less. Only ever reliably works in fiction as far as I'm aware, and in real life it's "hit or miss" to the point where I don't really believe in it._

"Ahh, she knows," Alastor said, eyes fixed on the crystal as he held it suspended an inch over the table. "Would you kindly be a dear and inform our friends? I cannot spare the focus at the moment. This is not exactly within my personal range of expertise."

Rita folded her arms and sneered at Alastor and his crystal, unimpressed. "I think I've got the gist of it. I've even known some researchers who try and use it to find areas of high aer density or hidden blastias, but it never works. There's no actual science to it!"

"Why not fill the rest of us in, since we're not all book readin' and researchin' types," Raven suggested. Chase paid more attention to us talking than to what Al was doing, and was kinda grinning to himself like he was in on a secret.

We were treated to return of Recital Mode Estelle, as she carefully repeated the information she recalled from her books. "Dowsing is an ancient art of divination used to locate hidden things. Originally it was intended for finding water, but its use was expanded to uncover treasure, missing people, and even areas of high aer energy. Dowsing sticks, forked rods, or a pendulum are the most common dowsing tools, although it fell out of practice approximately four hundred and sixty years ago."

Rita snorted, "Because its ridiculous and anyone who claims they can do it is a fraud."

I shrugged, "I actually did an experiment once, in class. We all had to hold little pieces of metal on strings and concentrate on making them move or stay absolutely still. But the point the teacher was demonstrating is that your body is constantly making small movements you're not consciously aware of. I think dowsing is based on the same principle."

"Interesting," Yuri stated blandly, not sounding like it really mattered to him at all. "And how is that supposed to help?"

"Well..." I looked uncertainly to Estelle, wishing I hadn't butted in.

Fortunately she didn't seem to mind, and helpfully said, "You ask questions, and the way the rods or crystal moves is supposed to give you an answer." _So basically a ouiga board. But, uh, how do you know what the answer is?_

"Right..." he looked skeptical. "I'll have to agree with Rita, it sounds bogus."

"'Bogus' only if, my lad, used by a normal human playing his hand at parlor tricks," Alastor mumbled, still watching the crystal pendulum. "It's another matter entirely when the Folk use wild magic to ask the question..."

"'Wild Magic'?" Rita echoed my own thoughts out loud. "Wait, tell me what that is!"

But just then the guild member Harry had sent out returned with a folded paper and some wrapped up object. After dismissing him, the Don's grandson brought both over to the table and laid them out. The map was a nicely detailed one of the area around Dahngrest; making note of rivers, streams, roads, farmsteads and ranches, and some other reference points. The Manor of the Wicked where Yeager's guild Leviathan's Claw was centered was marked up in one corner, but there were also notations of other outlying buildings or patches of cultivated land. I remembered the secluded shack the Red-eyes had kept me in for three days and frowned.

Once unwrapped from a scrap of cloth, the other object proved to be a large hilt of what once must have been (yet another) massive sword, but the blade had been broken off to leave less than an inch of jagged metal. Well, if it broke from Whitehorse using it and no one had bothered to fix it since, probably a good bet it would fulfill whatever "personal possession" requirement Alastor's dowsing needed.

The fairy gingerly took the hilt without complaint, setting it on the table before him and holding the pendulum directly above it. It hung motionless...and then suddenly began to spin rapidly on the end of the chain. Not only was that something I didn't believe a dowsing pendulum was _supposed_ to do, but the moment it started I felt a pressure against the back of my left hand. The marked skin tingled and I rubbed it with the thumb of my other hand. _Wild magic, huh?_

Estelle gasped, "Oh!" and Karol exclaimed, "Whoa, cool!" at the same moment.

Alastor's hair and coat had begun to move in an unseen wind that touched nothing else in the room, and with an unexpected snapping sound his wings appeared out of his back. It was no doubt the wings that had everyone's attention; they arched away from his back, changing from a brilliant red to a deep blue at the edges, with the thinnest possible veins of blue curling in towards his back again in branching lines. Definitely an effective way to leave a lasting impression on people. And dispel any doubts of his Fae nature.

"Amazing!" Rita exclaimed, staring at the fairy wide eyed before taking out tiny instruments and the pad she used for notes.

"Is it the aer doing this?" Yuri asked, looking to her for explanation.

"No!" she denied, fiddling with some tiny compass like thing. "The aer isn't doing anything!"

"That's not surprising," Chase was the only one with perfect composure, "Since fairies are from a world without aer."

The crystal pendulum had stopped spinning, and despite the whipping hair and flapping clothes it hung straight down in the fairy's hand. Slowly he passed his hand over the map, moving it from side to side while methodically covering the area.

"Is this really going to work?" Karol wondered aloud.

"He's tried this before," Chase mentioned. "It normally fails though, the only time I know it actually got a result was last time we were here, and Letha went missing."

I blinked. "He used it to find me?"

Raven made a noise of enlightenment. "So that's how ya conveniently picked the right way to go look for her!"

"Yeah, well, he used one of the cat drawings Letha made that time. So we weren't entirely sure if it worked right."

Yuri laughed shortly and glanced at me. "Looks like that prank of yours paid off unexpectedly." I felt a slight heat in my cheeks and pressed my lips together before I said anything to embarrass myself.

"Ah!" Estelle pointed at the map, "Look!"

The crystal had begun spinning wildly in place again. It did so uninterrupted for about ten seconds before Alastor's hand drifted down too close to the table. The tip of the crystal hit the surface and bounced up, flying up and smacking the fairy right in the forehead. His head snapped back and his chair actually toppled over backwards.

...Alastor the fairy...got KO'd by a tiny piece of crystal.

My heart felt lightened by this piece of karma.

"...Not very good at this, huh..." Yuri said flatly as we all stared at the fairy lying sprawled across chair and floor.

"_Pf-!_" Chase looked away with a hand over his mouth.

"Well, my _apologies_," Alastor drawled in an irksome tone, picking himself up with slow and deliberate movements to preserve his tattered dignity. "But it was hard to maintain proper focus with all the unnecessary noise distracting me!"

"Never mind that!" Harry snapped, anxious. "Where is it? Where's my grandfather?"

"It was right about here, wasn't it?" Raven pointed out on the map. "It started spinnin' above this spot."

We all leaned in to look at where Raven's finger rested on the map. "A road?" I observed, my eyes tracing along the marked line to see where it lead. "Hey, waitaminute-! That goes to-!" _Why would he go there?!_

"'The Manor of the Wicked'," Estelle read aloud. "That's an unusual name..."

"It's the lair of Leviathan's Claw," Raven told us. "Kinda their main headquarters. What the Don's goin' there for, and without tellin' anyone about it, I don't like to think."

I couldn't help looking up to Chase, and with only a few seconds delay his own eyes rose to meet mine. He'd said he didn't remember much about the game, but maybe he was getting an idea what was wrong with these events. We couldn't say anything with the others around. Breaking the shared glance I noticed that Harry was watching us, but the blond didn't say anything.

"So what do we do now?" Karol asked. "Go after him?"

"We better," Yuri agreed. "I don't care what that old man's thinking, that's a dangerous place to be alone."

"And we should let him know about what happened in Nordopolica, so that he'll hurry back. Dahngrest needs him!" Estelle added.

"Ugh, what a pain!" Rita bemoaned. "If he'd just stay here where he's supposed to, we wouldn't have to go out after him!"

The black haired swordsman gave her half a smile. "You could always stay behind, you know."

"Haven't I said it enough already? If Estelle's going then so am I!"

"I won't be going," Chase announced. This garnered surprise from all around the table, so the greatswordsman explained, "There's no telling for sure when the Palestralle guild members will get here. I'll stay to try and talk them out of doing anything rash, or to stop them by other means if necessary." A hand raised and grasping the claymore hilt over his shoulder made his grim point.

The princess looked troubled by his show of determination. "I hope it doesn't come to that."

"I'm staying too," Karol decided.

Rita rounded on him, looking disgusted. "This isn't the time for you to get scared and hide, you know!"

"That's not it!" the Ace protested. "I-I am scared, a little, but what I really mean is I want to try and talk to them too! You guys said so, right?" the boy directed wide eyes at me and then one by one to Raven, Chase, and even Alastor. "Even if the Don comes back in time, he might not be able to stop something from happening! So I want to stay and try to do what I can until he comes back."

Yuri nodded in acceptance, "If that's what you feel you have to do." Chase had reached out over the table and was ruffling up Karol's swooshy hair.

"If the rest of us are gonna go, we should leave soon so we don't arrive after the party," Raven reminded us.

"Raven," I said to get his attention. "Maybe you should stay here too."

He clearly hadn't expected that. "Why's that?"

"You're a well known and highly respected member of Altosk. If anyone were to have any chance of being able to reason with the other side while keeping the people here in line, shouldn't it be you?"

"Hey now, the way ta the Manor of the Wicked ain't used by a lot of people. You won't be able to follow it and get back as fast if you're not with someone more familiar with the area. And the old guy's got enough of a head start as it is."

"Can't say I disagree with that," Yuri frowned. "But Letha's got a point too, old man."

"Then it's a simple matter of having someone else act as guide," Alastor put in impatiently. "In fact, I'll volunteer myself. Leaving this iron benighted city as quickly as possible couldn't please me more."

Our genius mage eyed the fairy doubtfully. "You? Why would you bother coming along?"

With suffering in his voice, Alastor had the gall to say, "I fear that if I let this lady out of my sights," he gestured towards me with a fluid motion of the hand, "then she'll start popping across the countryside and I'll have to hunt her down yet again." He pretended not to notice the glare I leveled at him.

Yuri sized up the red haired fairy as well. "I'm not sure if we should really trust you, but if we're already taking your word for where he's gone-"

"Hmph," Rita sulked, "Even if he used some weird magic, I still don't think dowsing is reliable at all."

The swordsman shrugged, not disagreeing. "Yeah, well, it's the best lead we've got right now. But we can't guarantee you won't get pulled in if it comes to a fight," he finished his original thought.

Alastor's chin lifted a little proudly. "I assure you your concern is unnecessary, if understandable. I am neither leading your party astray, nor am I burdensome luggage incapable of fighting. I'll tend to myself."

"Yeah," Chase folded his arms up behind his head, "Al's fine. As long as he doesn't get into a wrestling match with a robot, that is." He wore a real shit eating grin as his 'boss' frowned at him.

Chase and I both lingered as the others filtered out through the doors. Raven hesitated at the door and glanced furtively towards me, but then seemed to change his mind and left. When no one else was in the room I chanced the risk to mutter towards the greatswordsman, "I'm not sure if I should feel surprised that Whitehorse has gone to the Manor, of if I should just call it a matter of course."

"I feel like something's off myself," Chase murmured back in a hush, "but I'm not all that clear on it. In the game, they heard Palestralle was coming, but then they ended up somewhere else trying to find the Don, right? Isn't that what's happening? Or were they supposed to be going somewhere else?"

"It was the Manor of the Wicked alright, but the Don's only supposed to leave _after_ he hears about Belius dying. He already knew how he was going to try and fix the situation between the guilds, so since he had nothing to lose he tried to take Yeager out first. One less problem left behind, see?"

Chase was nodding. "Got it now. He's left early, so if he doesn't know what the Hunting Blades and Harry did then he's not planning to die over it. So then there's no reason he should be going there. Except he is."

"I'm worried," I confided as I approached the door. "I would have wanted to stay and try to help here, but if we don't know why Whitehorse left then it could be a problem. I probably wouldn't have been much help here, no one has any reason to listen to me, so I'll go and try to help-"

I cut myself off midsentence when I stepped out into the hall and found Harry standing there. The young man appeared to have been waiting for us, eyes haunted. Before I could think of what to say (if anything!) he said, "Hurry up, or they'll leave without you." And then he looked to Chase standing behind me. "There's going to be a meeting in the main audience chamber to tell the other guilds about what's happening."

"Uh, right," the man nodded, "I'll be there."

x x x

We would have set out immediately, but truth be told we weren't in the best shape to just leave. I'd already had a rough day, yes, but the others hadn't had much time to restock. After all, we all left Nordopolica in a hurry (nothing new there) right after all the chaos in the Coliseum. And then they'd been stuck on a boat that had brought them as close to Dahngrest as possible, and I'm not talking about the nearest port town but the nearest stretch of beach. So other than any stops they might've made before catching up to me in the tavern, nada.

That being the case, we agreed on this: The trio staying plus Harry would try to pull together as many influential guild members, from _all_ the guilds that made base in Dahngrest, to try and explain matters before word of Palestralle's coming hit them. Those of us going out after the Don split up to go buy replacement gear and such with the plan to meet up at the town's western exit in half an hour. Alastor was already waiting there, absolutely dead set against staying inside the city proper any longer. _Poor_ iron intolerant fairy bastard.

I was on my own since I had stopped back at the tavern first to get the things I'd left there. Standing on one side of the street I made a face at the contents of my gald purse and recounted the coins (as if they could have multiplied in ten seconds, I had _yet_ to be the recipient of such a fortuitous spot of magic). I _did_ have more now that I consolidated my meager earnings with the little I had left behind in my old bag with the knotted strap. Should I see if that was enough to buy a replacement dao? Or should I just build up my personal stash of gels a little more and maybe spring for an emergency panacea bottle for once?

Deciding that since I _did_ have two perfectly serviceable daggers, weird and coming from Verte though they may be, I should go for the medical route. So my destination was an apothecary a Sagittarius regular had recommended to me (currently a half price sale on lemon gels! I'd always been too much of a cheapskate to buy them before!). And I'd definitely pick up some more mundane bandages and salves. After getting separated from everyone and being on my own for a week, I'd realized I'd taken for granted that there'd always be someone with an arte or a handy gel to fix me up.

But something caught in my peripheral vision blew all thoughts of gald prices and medicine from my mind.

Frantically I looked around, braid lashing across my face with the speed I turned my head at, and one hand grabbed at a dagger hilt. _White-I saw something white-I could swear it was a dog, what color were its ears?!_ Heart hammering I searched up and down the street but saw no red eared fairy dog. Not even a normal white dog. All I got was some stares and a number of people going out of their ways to cross the street away from me.

I sighed, letting the hem of my gi fall back down to cover my dagger. My hand found its way to my heart. _Overdoing the paranoia much? I'm in the middle of a city, even Alastor's already made it clear that he doesn't like being here. There aren't going to be any fairy dogs out for a walk!_ But they'd been in Mantaic. I frowned when recalling that, wondering... They hadn't been following me, had they?

_Maybe... Hold on...they got into a fight, didn't they? The one that Cu...argh, get a grip!-that Cumore kind of attacked was already heavily wounded. ...And Chase was there. Come to think of it, didn't he say he was tracking a "monster" that got in the barrier?_ Something else for the list of things to grill him on later. But it seemed a good guess that the fairy dogs at Nevys' command weren't out for my blood alone. Unless he wasn't the only one with a pack at his beck and call.

_**Guild versus Guild**_

_Yuri: The town's quiet now, but it could get ugly quick._

_Rita: Yeah, well. We've seen our fair share of ugliness._

_Yuri: Not like this, we haven't. Do you think Palestralle is just going to take Belius' death lying down?_

_Rita: ...The Don's grandson is wrapped up in this too. I guess they can't just let things slide. The guilds sure make a big deal about their rules and settling their scores._

_Yuri: Exactly._

_Rita: What a pain. I don't get it at all._

_Yuri: We're kinda caught up in this ourselves, you know. Just be ready if things go bad._

_Rita: I know._

x x x

Okay guys! That was your first update after a year of waiting! I'm sorry it took so long, and I hope I didn't lose too many of you in the process. So, at least a week and then I'll be back with more.

"I only do what I decide to do." -Yuri Lowell. Actually, I don't know if he says this at any point in the game, but during a Tales of Festival skit with all the other Japanese voice actors, Yuri's seiyuu says this and I was all, "Omg, fits so well with how I'm picturing he'd take the news."


	61. Chapter 61: Something Wicked Comes

Well, now I really get to have fun fucking things up. Ah ha haa...this chapter makes me feel really awesome and nervous at the same time. _I_ like how it came out, although I spent forever worrying over what repercussions certain actions would have and if characters really would behave the way I needed them to. Now to see if it meets _your_ approval!

A couple of new additions to my DeviantArt gallery that I want to point out, since they provide better visuals of Letha's current outfit, daggers, and her fairy mark.  
sylphwriter. deviantart art/Upclose-Look- 373099536  
sylphwriter. deviantart art/Spider-Silk-Gi-and-Notes- 373101116

And I didn't mention this last time since the author's note was long enough, but I went out and bought myself an Xbox 360 just for the purpose of playing Tales of Vesperia. :D I regret nothing! No, wait, I regret I don't have the same time for video games I had as a kid. And that if I decide to get into Xillia after all I'll have to buy a PS3 as well. (Not ruling that out.)

And, once more, I've another chapter in reserve but it won't go up before a week has passed, nor take longer than two weeks to go up. So, uh...*tries to remember what day it even is*...Friday! Next one won't be up before next Friday!

Angelic: I can't really blame anyone for forgetting, even temporarily. I suppose that's better than being constantly waiting and hoping for a new chapter, although my pride would like that better. But my pride can acknowledge that I've more growth to do anyway.

Now if Alastor never uses that crystal again, it's totally because he has a grudge against it and not because the writer forgets he has it, capiche? ;p

x x x

Chapter 61: Something Wicked Comes

x x x

After that strange maybe sighting of a fairy dog I walked around in a kind of daze, hardly giving any thought to what I bought nor to the route I followed to the edge of town. In the end I found my feet had brought me to the designated meeting on the west side of town, from where we'd strike out towards the Manor of the Wicked in the hopes of catching up to the Don before shit went down.

Alastor was sitting on the stone paved street, arms wrapped around his knees and cheek laid on top of them. He was gazing dolefully up the street into the city, waiting. He almost looked like a child sulking in a corner. Yuri stood nearby, not quite blocking the fairy's view but with his own back to the street. It was only by viewing the movement of Alastor's lips that I could tell they were talking to each other. About what I could only guess.

Whatever it was, apparently Alastor had said something that Yuri needed to think over, as neither of them was saying anything when I got closer. Repede had been lying on the road at a small distance from the two, and was the first to notice me as he got to his feet. Then Alastor gave a little nod as I stopped behind the swordsman. Who was still unaware. I slid a foot along the ground and bent at the knee, causing my body to lean over so I was looking upwards at him from a downward angle. His mind was definitely elsewhere, but he blinked and jerked back when I suddenly appeared.

"If I were a ninja, I could have stolen all of your materia by now," I informed him somberly. For some reason that set Alastor off into a stream of almost repressed laughter behind me. Weirdo.

There was an uncomfortable beat before Yuri shook his head at my antics. "Good thing I don't have any to lose," he played along. "I take it 'materia' is something I'd rather keep safe from sneak thieves?"

"Well if you had some, you would know if it was."

"Had what?" The curious voice was Estelle, who had Rita in tow.

Our irritable mage supplied her own answer. "Some better sense than to stick his nose into this guild nonsense."

"Oh, Rita," I sighed. "_None_ of us have that!"

"Yeah, a ninja stole it," Yuri borrowed my joke. The banter felt more comfortably natural by this point. "They're good at that."

Estelle considered his statement and pronounced, "Well, I suppose we'll just have to do without it!"

_I love these guys_, I thought warmly as Rita spluttered objections to the smiling princess.

"All jesting aside," Alastor levered himself to his feet, brushing off his coat. "I presume you're all quite ready to be off?"

"Ready as we'll ever be," Yuri asserted. "Unless our guide's changed his mind. All set, Al?"

At the casual use of Chase's nickname for the fairy, Alastor's head lifted involuntarily. He stared at Yuri as if carefully weighing his own reply.

"Hey," Rita interrupted, alert, "You guys hear that?"

We all stood quiet and listened. Back in town there was something of a dull rumble, many voices coming together in an agitated manner.

"The rumour of trouble bestirs itself," Alastor intoned. "We should be off." Without wasting another moment he strode off out of town. The faltering humor from just a few minutes before had run dry as we followed his lead with hurried steps.

x x x

_**Don, Don't Get Hasty**_

_Estelle: If the Don really did go meet with Yeager, what could the reason have been? And why would he go alone?_

_Yuri: It's not to deepen the ties of their friendship, that's for sure. It was probably because he didn't want his subordinates to get wrapped up in the mess._

_Rita: Well, that's just one more example of how much the guilds love doing things the hard way. Upholding every rule. Settling every score. Is it all really that important?_

_Alastor: Do please keep up. It's a better choice to hurry to ask the man in question himself rather than to drag your feet in thought._

_Rita: We got it already!_

x x x

Following Alastor's lead was an unsettling experience. Admittedly, that was probably more than a little due to my antagonistic attitude towards the guy. At least I don't think Rita was any happier about it than me; she stared at his back with a piercing glare that trumped my own fairy targeting evil eye.

But what was really _weird_ about it was his random little detours and changes of direction. The fairy man seemed confident of our location at all times, so I didn't think he was actually lost. The first time he suddenly veered away from the path the only explanation we got out of him was, "It will be longer in distance, yet shorter on time."

The third time this happened, Alastor actually tried to make us backtrack the way we'd come. Yuri was the first to challenge him. "We don't have the time to waste with these games. Are you really sure these 'shortcuts' are saving us time?"

The fairy glanced around and saw none of us would take another step if he didn't give better reason for us to. Irked, he raised a hand to rub his forehead as he sighed, a gust of wind ruffling his hair. "Well, it _would_ have."

Repede's head came up sharply when the breeze drifted past and the dog began to growl. We were all familiar enough with that warning sound that we already had hands on our weapons before knowing what the danger was. But it wasn't long before crashing and snapping in the forest undergrowth, accompanied by snarls and a howl, reached our human ears as well. And soon after the racket announced them a pack of wolf like monsters on the heels of a fleeing giant praying mantis broke through some low hanging branches that had been blocking them from view.

With our wonderful luck, we were smack in the path of the escaping bug monster (_Yuri and his curse!_). Which began making this chittering and clicking sound and immediately tried to cut at the nearest person with its bladed forearms. Estelle blocked the first strike with her small shield and used her slim blade to parry the other to buy herself time.

The pack was infuriated by us interlopers horning in on their hunt, and with great barks more than half of them began to target us. Full battle set in.

It was nasty business; the bug and a handful of the wolves were already injured. The mantis lashed out with the panic of a cornered beast, desperate but dangerous in its final stand. I thought Estelle was holding her own against it well enough, and her sword would be better suited than my daggers with their shorter reach.

I made like Repede and started darting among the wolves, leaving gashes and yelps everywhere. My heart felt like it had jumped up into my throat and was hammering at the walls as I pulled my arms out of the reach of snapping jaws, the images of yellowing fangs standing out too vividly in my vision for my liking.

My hand began tingling at some point. I hardly noticed at first as the sensation was so faint and the adrenaline rush almost blocked it out. Then Alastor came into my field of view, skipping aside as a wolf lunged at him. Meanwhile another Alastor slipped between two other wolves that ended up biting each other instead of him.

_Wait, what?_

That wasn't all, there were more Alastors appearing all over the place. All of which were dancing around the monsters without actually attacking them, but taunting the beasts to the point of madness. There must've been nearly twelve of him once the wolves realized something was up and began backing away from us, hackles raised and growling, though some whimpered in confusion.

"What in the..." Yuri lowered his katana for a moment in amazement at the show.

And Rita was on the verge of pulling hair out. "How is he _doing_ that?! He's not using aer at all!"

It was then Estelle got in a critical blow with some fancy sword work (Marche Waltz, I thought she declared), putting the mantis down for the count. She retreated from the bug, returning closer to where we'd begun to regroup, when Alastor's voice came from..._somewhere_ that wasn't any of the smug copies of him. "Now if everyone would just stay put quietly for a moment, then we'll soon be naught but air to them."

All the extra fairies vanished. The wolves stopped their aggressive posturing and stood still, sniffing at the air and whining. They milled together as if reassuring themselves before first one and then more crossed to the dead mantis and began tearing at it with their teeth. A few nosed at the bodies of a pair of dead wolves, or licked at new wounds. None of them noticed us at all.

Cautiously we retreated, watching the feeding monsters for signs that they had remembered us until we were a safe distance away. Alastor reappeared, just one of him thankfully, and with an air of "I told you so" he took up the lead in another direction again. My hand had stopped tingling, although I still rubbed at it with suspicion. By that point there was more than enough evidence that it sensed more than just the heirloom pieces.

"You've been avoiding monsters this whole time?" Estelle asked, and it lifted the sense of lingering weirdness.

"Yes," the redhead confirmed, "I have no wish to needlessly take the life of every creature unlucky enough to try and eat us. Avoiding encounters also ensures we arrive at our destination as swiftly and with as few batterings as possible."

"How do you know where they are?" Yuri questioned, "Not even Repede's noticed anything when you stop us, except for that last time."

Alastor spread his hands. "How does a tree know that it must grow?"

Rita rebuked, "Trees don't know anything at all! They don't think!"

"On the contrary," the fairy countered. "They know precisely all that they need to. And think on all the things they have seen."

I gave him a dubious look. _Either he's going guru on us, or he's taking some pages out of Verte's book_. Then something preposterous occurred to me. _Hey, he's not implying that he knows where monsters are because the trees tell him, is he?_ That would be one weird variant of "I heard it from the grapevine."

I opened my mouth to ask, but closed it again without a sound. _I mean, he may be a fairy, but even that's too much to be expecting from Fae abilities, right? Right?_

After that no one openly objected whenever he abruptly changed the direction he lead us in. Although Rita looked more like she was stalking after him, sharp eyes watching every move he made to catch any hint of magic working.

x x x

How very fortunate it was that the forest grew thick right up to the very fenceline of the Manor. One could creep right up and grab one of the black iron bars and still remain hidden, crouched in the bushes and weeds. As long as that person wasn't Alastor, who glowered distastefully at the fence and kept a good distance from it even as the rest of us pressed as close as we dared. It was getting dark, so our merry little band wasn't in much danger of discovery.

Peering through the bars we could scan the grounds and the building itself. From what I could see of it, it was a nice looking place, or I thought as much. Classic in appearance, impressive but not full blown pomp. I couldn't identify the architecture, but no surprise there. Houses were...someone else's interest. Who's? Couldn't remember for the life of me.

Two guards stood at attention at the double doors, challenging two smaller figures that had just arrived. More Red-eyes stood along the path running from the door to the gate, and hood covered heads could be glimpsed through the lighted windows at times.

I quirked an eyebrow to see that their customary jackets were yellow instead of the more familiar dark tones, blue and purple. _Hmm, the cut of my gi kinda mimics their coat tails too... Hope I don't get mistaken for one of them in the heat of a fight._ Be sweet if I could take advantage of it in a reverse fashion though. Still, I decided it would be prudent to pull my gi inside out to wear its dark interior on the outside for the time being. Not being seen in the first place was preferable.

"It's so heavily guarded..." Estelle voiced aloud.

"Shh," Yuri hushed her quickly, straining forward with one hand wrapped around one of the fence's iron bars to support his weight. "They're arguing about something."

And sure enough, the exasperated voice of one of the Gauche-Droite girls escalated in pitch and volume. "What part of 'let us in' are you having trouble with?" I winced. I couldn't place the voice to either of the girls, since the two of them were inseparable and I still hadn't figured out which one was which. This one hurt my ears more though.

"Like I said, your timing seems just a little too perfect," the guard answered unperturbed. Now his was a voice I liked. Kinda reminded me of a snake without being all hissy and sibilant. "Don't you have anything to prove who you say you are?"

"You know what?" the more level voiced and business like of the two girls replied, and the figure on the left raised her arm and thrust it out to the side. "Actually, we don't. Let us through. The Don is here. We don't have time to sit and chat."

"So the old man really is here," Yuri whispered, head turning to peer at the red head behind us. "Guess your bogus magic worked after all."

Alastor merely sniffed derisively at the thought that his magic could be questioned. But Rita grumbled, "Yeah, well, it would've been better if he could have caught us up to the Don before he got here."

"Didn't you go looking for proof that the Hunting Blades were after that dragon rider?" Snakey voice asked the girls.

"I told you, we received word that Master Yeager was meeting with the Don before we could arrive at Mount Temza." I frowned at the darkness. There was a very _minute_ distinction there that concerned me.

The more emotional girl's voice chimed in, "We couldn't very well ignore news like that, could we?"

Yuri pulled back and then straightened, though still remained in a crouch. "The Hunting Blades are out to get Judy?"

"What are you waiting for!" I winced at the voice again. "You won't be any use to Yeager if we have to give you a beating."

The guard didn't seem impressed by the threatening promise. But in the end he let the girls into the manor. And sent a number of the guards in with them as an escort.

"Ah, serendipity smiles," I crooned. "Pretty sure we were all due some good luck by now."

Yuri was the first to stand up, swatting away some clinging branches. "Guess we'd better strike while the iron's hot." The rest of us stood as well, all except for Estelle.

Her pale face looked up to us from the dark. "Why do you think the Hunting Blades would be after Judith?" she asked.

Rita scratched at a cheek and suggested, "If they're looking for apatheia, maybe they want the dragon she was riding." She motioned with her hand, connecting the dots. "If he's an Entelexeia, he might become an apatheia like Belius." Realizing what she'd said, she falteringly finished, "...I mean...when he dies." The "Dragon Freak" hating mage slumped a little.

I closed my own eyes, troubled. "I...can't say I perfectly recall all the details of their motivation," I offered tentatively. "But any Entelexeia is a target that they'll go to any lengths to destroy. And apatheia shouldn't be allowed to fall into the hands of unconscientious people."

Yuri groaned a little. "I can tell we're _really_ going to enjoy your cryptic word games."

"Sorry," I apologized, head falling a little. "I'll try not to make a habit of it..."

"But if they're as determined as you say they are, that really doesn't sound good for Judith," Estelle murmured.

The swordsman was realistic about the dilemma. "Judy might be in trouble, but we should help the Don out first. Especially with those two charming young ladies in there."

The princess looked over towards the manor. "The Don...but Judith..."

"If you want, you can go to Mount Temza yourself," he suggested to her. Estelle stared at him in bewilderment, either at the option to abandon our current mission or that he would imply she'd be going alone. Yuri only added, "We're practicing making decisions, remember?"

As the princess thought over the possibilities before her, Yuri turned away and started for the gate. He looked like nothing more than a particularly dark shadow moving in the night. "Let's go," he ordered the rest of us.

"I'm going too!" Estelle hurriedly hopped up from the ground before he'd even gotten far. If Yuri was a shadow, she was a pale ghost in her white dress.

"She'd be upset if I left the Don like this to go looking for her," the girl explained with conviction. "I can just hear her saying, 'My, what did you think you were doing?'"

Rita hesitated briefly before attempting her disinterested facade again, "...Don't worry about that lady. She's tough," the mage grudgingly acknowledged with a dismissive hand wave.

"All right, let's get the old Don out of this place," Yuri reiterated our purpose, then looked past us all into the shadows where we'd been hiding.

Surprisingly Alastor hadn't moved from his spot, but was facing the depths of the forest we had come from. And we would have missed that we'd lost him entirely if he hadn't spoken to himself. "...Gow?"

"You coming Al?" Yuri called back to him. "You never said anything about what you'd do once we got here."

The fairy shook his head slowly. "No, I didn't... But I think I shall. Something has been troubling me, and it would be wisest to stick together."

That was a somewhat ominous statement given his already demonstrated ability to tell when we were about to walk into trouble. Yuri at least gave him a deep stare before nodding and accepting him with a noncommittal, "Whatever works for you."

x x x

_**Judith in Trouble**_

_Alastor: The concern you have for your absent friend is admirable, though ill-timed._

_Yuri: Yeah, well, unfortunately the problem isn't just if she's okay. If that were all, I'm sure she could handle herself well enough until we catch up._

_Rita: But when we find her, she better be ready to talk!_

_Yuri: I'd like to know how Leviathan's Claw managed to get information about the dragon rider and Hunting Blades in the first place. I'm sure there's something they're after._

_Estelle: ...Judith._

_Alastor: Certainly, certainly. All quite understandable considerations._

_Rita: Grr, you know something and just don't wanna tell us, don't you?_

_Alastor: Perish the thought, my dear!_

_**Quick Wardrobe Switch**_

_Estelle: ...Huh? Wait, Letha, since when were you wearing that?_

_Letha: Hm? Wearing what?_

_Estelle: That black jacket!_

_Letha: I've been wearing it this whole time-_

_Rita: Please, don't think you can fool us. Only a blind man would miss that bright yellow eyesore you were wearing before._

_Letha: *Cough* As I was saying, it's the same gi as that "yellow eyesore"; it's reversible. The interior is black. Did you think I planned to try sneaking around outside a mansion of assassins in that get up?_

_Rita: ...Oh. Nevermind._

x x x

Only a few of the guards had been left in their positions by the front door and the gate. The ones along the path had been called back for escort detail, rather needlessly since they were keeping watch over their own members after all. But our enemies over cautiousness worked to our advantage in this case.

Yuri and I shared a significant look. In our black ensembles we were the least visible, and on top of that were the most capable to take out the guards quickly to avoid alerting and bringing down the whole manor on our heads. With a nod he indicated which guard he'd handle, but a touch on my shoulder made us both pause.

"Here," Alastor whispered as he offered something to me. In his hand was a haphazard little pouch made of soft yarn woven together clumsily. There were many gaps between the strings, and I could feel dried leaves crunching inside. "Take care not to hold these sachets close to your face, or to breathe deeply if by chance you do," he warned even as he passed a similar little pouch to Yuri. "You would sleep most soundly through all the fun."

"Handy, though I could manage without," Yuri commented while tossing his in hand a little carelessly.

"Not without some risk of noise and discovery," Alastor returned drily.

I regarded the gift dubiously, trying to sort out some mixed feelings. Well yeah, I'd love any harmless solution that didn't risk us injuring or killing people. Not to mention I wasn't as confident as Yuri that I could knock someone out in one strike. But...this reeked of Verte's modus of operandi. "Who did you get these from?"

The redhead glanced at me sidelong. "...We freely seek boons of our own kin, and make sport of winning prizes from each other. Whether won by trial or by trickery is left to the taste of the individual." _Implying, I suppose, that he did get it from a fairy like Verte, but "earned" it one way or another_. That seemed pretty Fae-like to me.

So we (the ninja duo, hells yeah) split up to take care of the two out front. He circled around to come at the furthest one from the opposite side without being seen. Being nervous about acting too soon, I hesitated until I actually saw the dark shadow that was Yuri spring on the unsuspecting Red-eyes.

His companion didn't miss that something was happening nearby, but once I saw Yuri was acting I jumped into gear and all but leaped on my own target. My right arm latched around his upper arms to try and pin them down even as I smacked the sachet of herbs into his face.

Super conscious of every movement the guy made that could be an attempt to throw me off, I wasn't able to watch how the maneuver went for Yuri. In my case the Red-eyes mistakenly tried to pull my arm off before doing something about the sleep inducing mixture being held to his face, and that stuff worked fast. In less than a minute I was staggering back under his dead weight trying to lower him to the ground.

Looking up, I saw the yellow coat of the other guard disappearing into the forest undergrowth as Yuri dragged him away from the gate. I had a bit more of an ordeal doing the same, but it was a smarter move than just leaving the knocked out guards in plain sight.

"Is it really alright to leave them here?" Estelle glanced down at my victim while stepping past his feet. "They won't be able to protect themselves if any monsters come along."

Rita shrugged it off. "Before long it'll probably be safer out here than inside."

The remaining guard was alone by the front entrance, standing not directly in front of the doors but near the base of the stairs. Probably trying to keep his field of vision as open as possible to all angles. Yuri still had little trouble with him.

"Way's clear," I announced, bowing to the other girls with a sweep of an arm to present the doorway.

Rita slugged me in the shoulder when she walked past. "Stop playing around already."

Before either she or Estelle reached the door Yuri stopped them both with an upheld hand. After shooing us away he indicated for us to take positions safely out of direct line with the door, Alastor hung back at the bottom of the steps and looking elsewhere, and then swung it open himself.

Yuri boldly stepped right in as the rest of us tried to look past him to see what awaited inside (which made his attempts to keep us out of harm's way kinda pointless). Well, no one immediately tried to behead the reckless swordsman, so I didn't wait long to follow in his wake. Sure as I am that even if he _looked_ unprepared, if someone had tried then Yuri could have stopped them and kept his neck. But better to be there to back him up anyway. Even as I did so Estelle was already gasping, "L-look..." and pointing out two people standing on a balcony.

"Whitehorse..._and_ Yeager," I affirmed aloud for the three outside. The two men faced off above us at the second level of the mansion. The tall and slender built man in a dark blue suit against an even taller, big bodied and white haired man.

Down with us on the ground floor of the main hall a number of Red-eyes were already standing around, fingering their weapons but not making any move to ascend to attack the Don. Even the sister pair were standing by, arms folded as the greenish haired one pouted visibly. They all looked pretty shocked to see us come bursting in, every head swiveling towards us to stare (which is fucking creepy with the red lenses covering their eyes).

And we had the attention of the two higher up as well. Whitehorse had enough fury in his face to send a bear in retreat. Excuse me, an eggbear. "Just whaddya think yer doin' here, ya damn fools?!"

"Funny, we came here to ask you the same thing," Yuri countered cheekily. His sword was already unsheathed and he rested the blunt edge casually atop his left shoulder. "But we're here to save your old ass or drag it back where it's needed depending on the answer."

I choked, "Yuri!" _Damn, I wouldn't expect him to be anything _but_ irreverent to an authority figure, but that's still crossing a line!_ At least, on further thought, the Don would probably be the last person to care about Yuri's attitude. Probably laugh and maybe beat the crap out of him to make a point under better circumstances.

"Ah, what good timing!" Yeager crowed, sounding honestly pleased by our arrival. He flourished a hand in a gesture that both flipped his hair from his eyes and finished by gesturing down at us. "If you are not willing to trust my sources, perhaps you will be willing to listen to your own, ja? I am sure the news that brought them all the way to my humble home seeking you is precisely what I asked you here to discuss."

"Wut?" I could not believe my ears. The Don came because...Yeager asked him to? Leaving aside for the moment _why_ Yeager would invite Whitehorse to his base (not for tea and cake, I was positive!) there was the question of _WHY_ the Don would go _alone_ and without _telling anyone!_ Even if he actually decided to agree to a meeting, wouldn't the sensible thing be to have it on neutral ground and with at least a couple people at your back? Or at least aware of where you were in case the worst happened? That was _rookie_ knowledge right there!

And as my mind babbled on about how illogical it all was, Whitehorse growled at either Yeager or us or both. Still, he asked us as Yeager prompted, "What's goin' on that the Union'd send a bunch of young ones to a place like this?"

"If you don't want another war on your hands," Yuri answered, "You should get back to Dahngrest right away."

Estelle reached into a discrete little bag she'd been carrying since I met with the group again. From it emerged a sight I hadn't expected but shouldn't have surprised me. A familiar large gem sat in her hand, glowing faintly from within as if it contained a life of its own. "This belonged to Belius... We thought it would be best to bring it to you."

The cyano ciel crystal winked up at him as Whitehorse came to the balcony rail and grasped the polished wood so hard it creaked. He knew what it meant all right. "Of all the... Why'd she have ta wind up like this...?" His head sank as he mourned the passing of an old friend. Outside in the forest, the howl of a wolf rose through the night poignantly, its pack soon joining it. Repede whined softly.

Suddenly I felt uneasy to realize the apatheia was being displayed in a room full of people I wouldn't exactly call trustworthy. The Red-eyes mooks didn't seem to understand the significance of the stone, although they still oggled it avariciously. Who wouldn't? It looked like a giant fucking jewel. But Yeager's eyes glinted and his trusted girls stared at it intently.

"You can feel sorry for her later!" Rita snapped out insensitively. "Right now there's even bigger problems, and your guild of hot heads aren't going to make it any better if you don't go back and do something about them!"

The great man didn't respond for a minute, but from below we could see his eyes open and firm with resolution. "So," he finally said, "That fool boy really got his neck in deep this time, huh. And now he's gonna see how heavy leadership really is."

"You knew?" Yuri questioned.

"My sources are rarely mistaken," Yeager answered instead, and pretty smugly at that.

"'Sources,' right," the swordsman scoffed in return. "You've got some nerve you know."

A cold sense of panic had seized around my heart like a fist, part of my mind still whirling as it tried to grasp at possibilities.. But the guild boss didn't so much as glance in my direction. _Of course, he's got more class than that. Class and professionalism_.

Whitehorse released the railing and turned on Yeager. "If that's the case, then I know what I've gotta do. An' I'll make sure I take care of ya first!" A scrape of metal accompanied his own great two handed sword (which he held in one hand, of course) leaving its own scabbard.

This of course was echoed in kind by all the Red-eyes immediately raising their own weapons, their customary knives and crossbows predominantly, and my own friends falling into their own stances. Yeager didn't appear ruffled in the slightest to have a giant of a man menacing him with sharp steel. Estelle returned the apatheia to its place before reluctantly pulling her own slender blade and shield.

I grimaced to myself. _Different, and yet the same old thing again!_ This was a frustrating pattern to see emerging.

_Huh... Did I hear something outside?_

"Inside!" Alastor suddenly barked, shoving Rita and Estelle from behind to move them fully inside the manor and finally leaving the doorstep himself. He wasted no time in slamming the doors shut.

"What the hell-?" before I could even finish the door shuddered as something heavy slammed against it from the outside.

"_Gow-ROOOW!_" a deep and throaty growl rumbled through the wood. It was enough to thrum inside my own chest like the percussion of a massive drum.

"The hell is that?" I asked again in a shaking voice.

Another wolf howl split the air, this time sounding from the manor grounds. My knees went weak in sudden comprehension. Not a wolf, but either one of the fairy dogs or a Cù Sìth again. Or some other breed of Fae hound, I didn't know, but that really wasn't a detail I cared about at the moment.

"A Gowrow," Alastor explained as another rolling "_Gooow!_" accompanied the monster outside throwing itself at the door again. Two of the Red-eyes rushed forward, dropping knives and crossbow to the floor on the way, in order to brace the door with him while one bolted the door. "A subspecies of dragon native to North America, where it was dismissed by the human population as a hoax targeting credulous tourists."

_This thing's from _Earth_? I have _never_ heard about it before!_

"There's a _dragon outside?!_" Rita shouted in disbelief.

"Ain't none supposed to be livin' in th'area," Whitehorse objected, for the time being setting aside his new goal of killing Yeager.

"_Gooooow!_" Glass shattered. A scaled claw had thrust itself through a window in a corridor branching off from the main hall. And, by the way, those windows were up on the second floor, so the thing was big enough to _reach_ that high.

"Correction," Alastor muttered, door shuddering at his back as the monster switched tactics and had begun digging and scraping at the wood with its own claws. "There are _dragons_ outside. Soon to be inside."

Another "_Gow-rooow!_" echoed from the other side of the house. There were at least three of them, all looking for different ways in.

"Gauche! Droite!" Yeager commanded.

"Yes sir!" they both clipped out and practically flew up the stairs to the landing. They lost no time in lunging at the offending claw with swords extended. Both edges struck home and bit through the scales. The dragon roared in pain and jerked its claw back out.

"What are you lumps standin' about for?" Whitehorse bellowed at us all on the ground floor-us as well as the Red-eyes who had yet to move. "Some of you go see ta the one 'round back!"

When they hesitated Yeager reinforced the order with his own, "And while you are doing that, be sure you inform the others who they should be more concerned about. The monsters and not the guests, ja?"

I had shaken off my own stupor and was leaping the stairs two at a time to join the girls at the window, swerving around the two guild heads on the way. They needed reinforcements and I wanted a look at whatever this gowrow thing was. When I got there I was momentarily stunned to see a reptilian eye glaring in through the gaping window. Even with the girls attacking it the dragon had torn brick and mortar from the casing. The space had almost widened enough for it to stick its triangular head in, tusks and all.

_Tusks_ and all. It was like a dinosaur had mated with a boar and produced this thing.

For the time being it looked like the girls had the situation under control, stabbing and slashing at the face and eyes whenever the head came within reach. And the gowrow couldn't maneuver well when sticking either claw or head inside, so it still hadn't scored a hit on the pair.

Still, unless either Gauche or Droite managed to stick a sword deep enough to stab the brain, they were just delaying the thing from ripping a hole in the wall large enough for it to climb inside.

I reconsidered how much help I'd be since it was more likely I'd just get in their way. They were familiar with each other and knew how to work together, but in the limited space I'd be worse than a third wheel. _Well, I'll just have to get out of their way again. "Leap before you look."_

"You two!" I yelled. "Keep its head still for me!"

"Don't you tell us what to do!" the green haired girl shot back, but she and her red haired counterpart both stabbed down at the dragon's head in synchronized strikes. They didn't pierce through, but the force snapped the head down to the floor and for the moment it was pinned.

I leaped up and planted a foot right above its yellow eyes, running out the window along its sinewy neck.

A dragon's neck and back do not make the ideal ramp to descend from a second story window. As a point of fact, the thing was large but it took all its height to reach that window, with one claw braced against the building while the other pawed and tore at the frame and people inside. So going down its back was actually a near vertical slope with ridges of horns growing along the spine. If it weren't for those horns serving as impromptu foot holds I definitely would've fallen straight off.

Grabbing one horn near the base of the skull in one hand, I pulled out the orange bladed Simurgh and charged it with aer for good measure. With my old standby Pierce I stabbed the dagger into the neck and dragged it down. Scales cracked and broke, some falling away, as blood poured out of the wound. The gowrow shrieked in pain, I could feel the vibration conveyed through where my knees and hand held on, and it thrashed wildly to throw me off.

Holding on was all I could manage, but saw that was impossible when the ground suddenly began rushing up anyway. Clumsily I let go and tried to fling myself away before the monster could roll over and squish me between its body and the ground. Not knowing how close it was I desperately tried to keep rolling over to put more distance between us before finally getting back up onto my feet.

For a split second I saw something thin and sharp swinging at me and then I was instinctively throwing myself backwards yet again to avoid it. It whistled past my nose by just a few hairs. The dragon's tail was long and flexible, with a flattened tip that gleamed almost metallically in the light from the manor's windows. Even as it saw the first swing had missed the beast was hissing and snapping the appendage back at me.

I side stepped as the tail cracked into the ground where I'd just been standing, sprayed by dirt knocked up by the impact. A slice was cut into the earth where the flattened end of the tail struck, looking more like a sword had been dragged through it.

_Playing jump rope with this thing won't get me anywhere_. The monster apparently had similar feelings as it roared and bounded towards me.

Dodging to the side out of its path wasn't enough. A claw lashed up trying to intercept and sideswipe me. Somewhere in a randomly calm spot of my mind the thought registered, _Well, you fucked that up_. The most I had time and presence of mind to do was raise one arm up in a feeble attempt to guard and with the other hand brace the Phoenix blade point towards the oncoming claw.

The impact rattled me to the bones and flung me to the side like a rag doll. My dagger wrenched about in my hand and I almost lost it, so that paired with the roaring, "_Gooow!_" indicated the dragon had simultaneously stabbed itself on the red blade.

But that was background data incidental to my immediate problem of rolling through dirt and grass and thinking I'd push myself back up if I could just remember which way "up" was first. I did manage to work myself up onto all fours and finally up onto my two feet.

Where was the gowrow while I was collecting myself? I shook my head and looked around desperately to find it before it got me first.

The beastie had its attention drawn away from me, courtesy of two red and green haired girls from the devastated windowsill raining attacks down on it from above. With the greater distance presented to them, Gauche and Droite were demonstrating the long range abilities inherent to their weapons; firing off small balls of red and green aer charged light from their swords as if they were bullets.

Each left a small circular pock mark on the gowrow's scales, blood seeping through the splintering pieces where the little craters overlapped. It thrashed around on the ground while yowling its strange cry up at them, but their attacks weren't enough to deter it from getting closer to retaliate. It lurched back up on its hind feet to attack at the window with teeth and claws once again.

"Oh no," I growled. "I didn't come out here just to get a better view of your backside!"

At that moment I heard something else growling from behind me. _Oh..._ A cold stone of anxiety dropped and landed somewhere in my gut. _Come to think of it...there was howling out here not long ago_. Reeling about I did indeed find a small pack of white dogs ghosting towards me through the night. With hardly any light but from the moon and stars to see them their red ears looked more like they were black.

But I knew them. There were about four approaching slowly in a rough V formation. Those were the ones I could see at any rate, but the bigger, darker Cù Sìth would be virtually invisible in the dark.

We stared each other down for a moment. And then I ran.

I didn't have to look to know the fairy dogs were chasing me, drawing closer on my heels. Even normal domesticated dogs still had the hunter's instinct to chase fleeing "prey," of course an active hunting pack would do the same! But I didn't have far to go before I reached my goal.

Skipping over the frantically thrashing tail of the gowrow (who'd pretty much forgotten I was out there with it) I took a mad jump and almost threw myself on the thing's back again. I stashed away Phoenix once more in time to grab hold of one of the lower horns running down the monster's spine before it figured out the puny human thing from before was clinging on again.

It roared angrily and resumed the crazy rodeo we'd been having before. "Yeah," I grunted as it bucked and I worked to compensate by redistributing my weight. "Just crack that whip again!" For good measure I gave it a little jab with Simurgh.

In its blind determination to throw me off before I could start slashing it up again, the gowrow was stamping around wildly and smashing fairy dogs every which way with its tail. Nearly all of them even got cut by the blade-like end of the tail at least once, blood dripping through their white fur. All I had to do was hold on for dear life and hope it didn't decide to do another roll to scrape me off again.

Although a new complication presented itself when the dragon twisted its head and neck around to try and chomp me in half or at least gut me with a tusk. If it had a slightly longer neck or greater flexibility I would be a chew toy already! Warily I readied Simurgh with the idea of using it to stab at the snout if it manage to get too close. _I hope these bastards don't have fire breath._

"Hey, idiot, look out!"

My concentration split for a second and I looked away to see what the warning was for. A second mouth of fangs and curving tusks was surging towards me. _Oh frick! _Desperately I tried to think if any of the attacks I knew could stop the monster before it was too late.

"-and deliver my enemies unto me! Tractor Beam!" The teeth snapped shut on air as the gowrow was unexpectedly jolted into the air. I gaped to see the giant lizard squirming as it rose a good ten feet off the ground, two dogs yelping in the air alongside it. After a moment gravity returned to them, but with much greater force than normal judging by how they all slammed against the ground hard enough that I could feel the tremors from atop my mount.

A "steed" which had had quite enough of my presence. Its shoulder dipped as it prepared to roll again. I compliantly leaped from its back before it could crush me, tumbling through a few rolls to soften my impact.

Rolling back up, I spared a moment to try and take stock of the situation.

There was a splintering hole in the front doorway. The first gowrow had nearly broken through completely but abandoned the effort before breaking fully in. To try and snatch me off its friend's back, or at least that was the only reason I could think of.

The door had been propped open after the dragon left off to release three of my friends to the battlefield; Yuri and Repede wasting no time in descending upon the gowrow struggling back to its feet (the dogs were down for the count, I think that collision with the ground broke their legs) while Estelle was rushing in my direction. Rita hung back but had obviously been the first to send in her support.

"Are you alright?" the princess asked as she reached me, taking a position to cover my back with her shield and blade ready. My former steed and two of the dogs had banded together. We couldn't drop our guard for the moment it would take her to assess and magically heal injuries before they'd be on us.

"I'm fine," I decided the tossing around I'd been suffering hadn't seriously debilitated me. Only the arm that had taken the brunt of that one swipe earlier really felt like it needed attention, but it was straight and unbroken (hallelujah!) so it could wait.

"You're getting as reckless as Yuri," the other girl remarked pretty lightly considering the situation.

I snorted, slipping the Phoenix blade back out again. "I'll take it as a kindness that you call it 'recklessness' and not 'sloppy.' Can't say I disagree with Rita's opinion of me either."

"Heh heh," Estelle giggled, although it sounded a bit anxious. The dogs had begun circling just outside our reach. "I guess you keep scaring her. She doesn't want you to get hurt, not really."

"Right, not before she gets to beat me up herself. Maybe strap me to a lab table too." The conversation had to end there. The dragon reared up and then brought its full weight crashing down on the ground, shaking the ground beneath our feet so that we stumbled trying to keep our balance.

Both fairy dogs seized the opportunity to leap forward at us, although they came around from different angles. I tried to recover from the loss of my footing by throwing my weight into a spin on one pivoting foot, lashing my daggers out in my corkscrew version of that "Phantom Blade" spin attack. Since I hadn't executed it quite right I couldn't maintain the spin long without getting dizzy, so I cut it off early. The dogs were cringing back with new slashes across their faces and chests, one shaking its head as blood ran into its eyes.

With the dogs beaten back for the moment, I took the chance to glance behind me to where Estelle and the dragon had gotten. Her shield was serving the princess well against teeth and claws, deflecting them harmlessly as long as she didn't take the full brunt of the force behind them, and her sword was flashing prettily in the moonlight. I could almost make out her reciting the names under her breath as she concentrated on her moves. "Delight roll...Ray Sting!"

Satisfied that she had her fight well in hand, I returned my concern to the fairy dogs.

With a deep breath I focused on pulling in aer; threads of water and wind were abounding so I wove both together. "Sting them! Ice Needles!" I flung a hand out while directing the sharp pieces of aer constructed ice at the dogs. Few of them hit as the canines read through the trajectory of the attack in time to avoid it. I sighed, thinking again how I wished I knew Freeze Lancer or some other big magical attacks.

_Well, next up,_ I concentrated solely on gathering water aer. Splash was harder to avoid and easy to cast, but took a lot of aer to get that much volume. Simple for the experienced mage Rita, less so for the greenhorn me. I spread both arms while visualizing all the aer pooling between them.

The dogs saw that whatever I was doing was taking time to prepare, and they leaped together as one again. Trying to ignore the feeling that I sounded silly chanting the longer, more grandiose incantation, I repeated the words Rita had taught me to help manipulate the weaving of the formula. "Grant them thy undefiled purity, Splash!"

One dog was thoroughly drenched by water, the other hardly, uh, splashed as it lunged for my outstretched arms. I pulled them in close and danced back a step before impulsively snapping up a foot to kick hard against the canine's breastbone. It got shoved back, and then I was the one jumping forward to attack. The orange blade of Simurgh cut across the kicked dog's chest and up its neck, and then my momentum took me past it to the sopping wet dog.

"Frost!" I summoned more of the wind element to combine with the water drenching the dog and soon it was covered in visible white crystals with its breath gasping painfully. Speaking of which, I could hear the other dog was making some wet and gurgling noises as it panted.

Unlike the first time I was swarmed by a fairy dog pack, I had come out almost unhurt and victorious. But the dogs...I was hit by a sudden remorse for what I'd done. Of all the "monsters" on Terca Lumireis, they seemed so close to what was familiar to me, what spoke of home. Where I would never dream of hurting any animal, not even a dog trying to bite me.

Suddenly feeling as if leaden weight had been tied to my limbs, I heaved a sigh and looked away from the heavily wounded dogs to check on Estelle again.

I was just in time to see a particularly showy attack. Her blade efficiently jabbed at the gowrow leaving round puncture wounds, each glowing slightly as a kernel of light element aer was left behind. "O evil soul, fall before this pure light..." Seven times, and a familiar pattern I recognized from the night skies of Earth was left glowing on the wounded dragon. "Grand Chariot!" Then nearly in unison the little lights all exploded from inside the dragon, devastating it and leaving it open for a strong final stroke of the princess' sword.

"Estelle, you holding up okay?" I asked. Looking at either of us, it would be hard to say if the blood on our clothes and her gloves belonged to us or the monsters.

She nodded, pink hair swaying. "Yes, I think so. I didn't expect there to be more monsters out here besides the 'gowrows' Alastor warned us about." She looked closer at the frozen dog. "But...this looks more like the pet dogs I've seen in the capitol and towns... What are they doing with a monster like this?"

Closing my eyes, all I could say was, "Yeah, they do..." There were all sorts of different types of Fae dogs in the myths and legends of various cultures. This particular strain with the red ears was, best as I recalled ever hearing, essentially to the Fae folk what hunting dogs were to humans back in the day. Hounds bred and trained to hunt for sport. Other than the magical aspect...they probably weren't any different than any hound loyal to his beloved master.

Estelle gasped, "The others!" and we both returned to the moment, remembering that the fight wasn't over yet.

The other gowrow had moved farther away from both us and the manor doorway in its battle with Yuri and Repede. The grounds were torn up with rocks jutting up or lying strewn about; evidence of Rita going all out with some Earth element spells. Wisps of smoke rising from smoldering patches of grass were in evidence too. The dragon itself was lying on its side in an outer ring of the destruction, blood crusting around large puncture wounds in the stomach and cuts along its sides. Its scales were blackened as with soot, but it didn't appear the fire had done much in the way of effective damage.

But the fate of the other two dogs was a surprise and mystery. Back where the impact from the Tractor Beam had broken them against the ground there were signs that they'd tried to drag themselves along for a few feet, but then all further trace of them had vanished. I remembered the dog I had tried to "save" from Cumore had dissolved into smoke... But none of the others I had fought with since then did the same. And those injuries shouldn't have been fatal anyway, unless one of the others finished them off in a mercy blow. But there wasn't enough blood for it. And Repede stood on the spot, sniffing at the ground and growling in a way that sounded puzzled.

I had to shake my head at all the worry I was putting myself through over it. _Fae do mysterious and unexplainable things. It's part of their nature. Sure, it's more likely than not that ignoring something like this could come bite me in the ass, but there's nothing I can do about it now_.

Yuri was walking away from the gowrow corpse, a swing of his katana through the air flinging some of the blood from the blade. "You two okay?" he asked us. We both responded affirmatively.

The night hadn't fallen quiet yet. From inside the manor we could still hear "Gows" and "Rows" ringing out as people shouted and who knows what crashed all over the place. We didn't really have the luxury to take any longer of a breather, so all of us ran back towards the main entrance.

"You guys!" Rita called from the hole in the doors. Unlike us she hadn't gotten a break, immediately concentrating all her energy inside the building. She sounded panicked. "The two in here-they're way bigger! The Don-!"

Not needing to hear anymore, Yuri was the first to shove the door open wider and dive right in. I meant to follow...but froze up when I saw.

How the hell a dragon half again the size of the ones we'd fought managed to get through the hallways, well, it must've left one hell of a path of destruction in its wake. But there were two, one marginally larger than the other, and the largest had made it to the front hallway where there was enough room for it to move and strike out with all its wrath.

Small tables and vases were overturned and smashed, considerately provided seats and couches broken into kindling. The stairs to the upper landing had been smashed down the center by something heavy, up to a point where there was just a big hole broken straight through the steps. And the walls were gashed all about, most likely from the tail-blade and stray attacks.

The smaller of the two was still in the mouth of the hallway, lying in a spreading pool of blood but still snapping its jaws viciously.

A handful of Red-eyes, and not just yellow jacketed ones, were positioned around the room. Some lay prone on the floor or propped against a wall, but probably only one or two were unconscious. The others were either heavily wounded or...if not dead yet then close to their last breaths. The ones who weren't down were split between fending off the dragons.

Mingled among the fallen men was three more dogs...and these ones _were_ giving off smoke from a number of their wounds. (_Arrrgh! Stop seeming arbitrary!_)

Alastor was perched on the balcony railing with all the grace of a cat, bow drawn and red arrow taking a bead on the dragon on the floor below. There were already several red shafts sticking out from the gowrow's shoulders, feet, and one in an eye. Some of them had been snapped off with the arrowheads left in the wounds.

Gauche and Droite had also turned to the battle inside, leaving the monsters outside to me and the others in favor of using their own bodies as shields to protect Yeager if necessary. The girls were tattered but whole, and by the large scythe dripping blood Yeager was pulling back from the smaller dragon in the hall it was apparent he hadn't been content to stand by and watch while they risked their lives.

But what was really horrifying was Whitehorse.

"His-his arm!" I gasped in shock. The Don's left arm was gone. My eyes fixed on the absence, unable to look away once I picked out that one detail in the entire room of chaos. And still he was fighting tirelessly with the gowrow, his one arm and sword holding back the head that was straining forward trying to snap up more of him. Its tusks were stained with blood...

It took a jolt from behind to snap me out of it.

"Sorry!" Estelle apologized as she forced her way past me. I'd been blocking the door without realizing. Without hesitation she ran to the cluster of injured Red-eyes before stopping and raising her hands in front of her. "O brilliant angels, grant us your favor..." A diagram of glowing light spread from her feet across the floor. It rose up and surrounded her with the spell's formula as she finished, "Nurse!"

The aer morphed into vaguely woman shaped...things, that floated through the room and to every injured person. All the Red-eyes relaxed, tension easing from their bodies, and a few started trying to stand again. One "nurse" materialized in front of me (for all the notice I had failed to give its approach) and gently touched my arm, the aches seeming to lift away.

One "nurse" went to Whitehorse, circling around him uncertainly. One of his sides was covered in blood from a large circular _hole_ in his gut, which she closed with a touch. But other than stemming the flow of blood from his missing arm, she could do nothing. There was no ability in her skills to regrow limbs. She dissipated back into air (or aer, either way) leaving him permanently crippled.

Yuri lunged in and thrust an aer charged palm at the base of the gowrow's neck. "Raging Blast!" The small explosion radiating from his fist threw the dragon back. Not far, but it freed the Don from his stalemate. And our black haired swordsman followed the monster's involuntary retreat with slashing strokes of his sword from left to right and back, followed by the blade tracing circles through air and monster flesh alike as he spun it.

Yeager's scythe sang as it likewise twirled in his hands and swooped in to scoop out another gash across the dragon's flank, opposite the side Yuri was attacking on.

"Estelle!" Rita shrieked, almost dropping a handful of orange gels she'd been about to use. My head snapped the other in time to see one of the fairy dogs lunging blindly for the princess' back, jaws agape. Repede was rolling across the floor with one of the other dogs, trying to bring his own dagger into play against it.

Finally my feet started to move again. I dreaded being too late.

Just as the pink haired girl started to turn and see the canine about to assault her a dark purple form with red eyes glowing inside the hood interposed himself between them, catching the dog on his matched three bladed knives. Its weight sank onto the blades and staggered him before he shoved the dog off in another direction.

"What?" Estelle squeaked in surprise at having one of the assassins come to her defense.

I reached her side and stood on guard with my daggers, watching the other dogs. The third one was still down, but there was no guarantee it wasn't playing dead too. "Looks like you're the most effective healer, so keeping you well enough _to_ heal just became high priority for them," I informed her curtly.

"Don't think too deeply on it," the Red-eyes hissed at us, "We won't lose any sleep if your friends die here. Except you!" he directed the last at me, and I was honestly surprised by the hate that entered his voice. "It'll be a good day if I get to see you die painfully!"

Well, that was a little out of the blue, but not my primary concern. "Maybe today will be your lucky day," I said impassively. "We kinda need to kill something else now though."

The fairy dog had rolled up onto its feet, smearing blood across the floor in the process. And more blood continued to drip down to the floor under it as smoke curled up and away. The Red-eyes and I both raised our respective pair of knives in guard stances.

_Hey, waita-_"Mine aren't metal..." I murmured, brow furrowed as I looked from the tri-bladed knives to my strange flower-created (probably?) daggers. And I glanced upward at Alastor, who as a fairy had been very vocal about his dislike for iron. "Well, shit, took me long enough to figure that deal out." _But I never expected cold iron would make them _dissolve_ into smoke._

Nope, nope, no time to dwell on the matter, just memo to self; buy a proper steel weapon again.

The dog had fallen back down to the floor, still trying to pull itself back up, but unexpectedly the massive tail from the giant gowrow swung around and slapped us all away. It caught the Red-eyes and me at roughly chest level, propelling us back into a wall. And, unfortunately, we took Estelle along for the ride. The poor girl hit the wall before we did and then got crushed into it further by two full grown adults.

"Estelle! Letha!" Yuri shouted.

"What in hell do you think you're doing?!" the Red-eyes wheezed back at him. I knew how he felt; at the very least my ribs had probably cracked. Shallow breaths were all I could manage without my chest constricting in pain.

Painfully I rolled over and crawled the short distance to the princess. "Est-elle...!" I gritted out. She didn't respond, laying on the floor senselessly. "C'mon, wake up..." I grabbed her shoulder with one hand and tried shaking her. Wincing at a sharp pain that caused in my ribs and back, I let her go long enough to dig a gel-any gel-out of the little pockets hidden in the seams of the gi sleeves and popped it into my mouth.

There was a great shout from behind me. I rolled over and saw it was the Don. Even with only one arm he was still giving the battle his all. Before my astounded eyes his sword scraped against the ground up into the air in a diagonal slash, burning a trail of fire into the air as it sliced through it, and then brought the flaming blade back down on the neck of the gowrow.

Panting, the old bear of a man sank down to one knee. The gowrow crashed to the floor, neck half severed and cauterized. _Holy shit_, I stared in awe. _If that's what he can do one handed and heavily injured, no wonder all of Dahngrest has him on such a high pedestal_.

The other dragon made a plaintive sound at the fall of its comrade. But it was weak, and with another crash its own head fell to the floor as its strength gave out. Gauche and Droite's swords were withdrawn from its neck.

"Hey, old man!" Yuri was the first to shake off the stunning effect of the sight and rushed to Whitehorse's side. "Don't go kicking the bucket before we get you back to Dahngrest!"

The white haired guild veteran hacked out a mockery of a laugh. "Is that what ya should be sayin' to an old man who just took out a dragon for ya? Show some respect!" His laughter turned to coughing, and drops of blood appeared on his white beard.

"Come on, like some overgrown lizard could stand a chance against you." But Yuri's cajoling tone was belied by the growing alarm that could be seen in his face. He looked to me-to where I was pulling Estelle upright. I shook my head as she was still unconscious. My eyes widened as I saw fresh blood spreading across the white of the Don's shirt. _Oh God, he reopened the wound. And he must have already lost so much blood-it's a miracle that he's even conscious-_

Yeager was kneeling beside Whitehorse and Yuri, having procured a cord, short rod, and bandage from somewhere (it _was_ his house...) and was tying off a crude tourniquet on the stump of the Don's arm. His typical carefree demeanor was grim. Whitehorse grumbled something at the other guild boss.

A ghost of the usual smirk returned. "Consider it a momentary lapse of sentimental nature. I promise I shall get over it soon."

"Al?" Yuri implored the fairy on the upper level. Alastor was in the middle of shoving the longbow he'd been using inside a pocket of his coat (an impossibility that frankly didn't mean shit to me at the time). But even as he did so he stepped out into the air and dropped down to the ground floor, wings flaring out of nothingness to slow his fall. Scattered swears came from the conscious Red-eyes while Gauche and Droite jumped to place themselves between the winged man and their master Yeager.

Alastor gave no heed to the girls keeping protective guard over their boss. He was shaking his head as he alighted on the floor. "I have never known any personal talent for the healing arts. And even if that were not the case, I do not believe they would be of any use here." The redhead looked clinically on the Don. There was no pity in his eyes for the damaged human. The Don probably wouldn't stand for any of that anyway. "The best I may offer is to transport him back to his city with all swiftness. Perhaps there will be a doctor at hand there who may be of sufficient skill."

"Ha!" the Don forced himself back up to his feet to face the fairy. "Can ya now? That's a handy trick, I bet I coulda used someone like you in the guild."

"My sincere apologies," Alastor responded, unflappable. "But I believe that would conflict with the wishes of my current superior. She likes to have me on hand to look after her pets." He smoothly positioned himself under Whitehorse's remaining arm to provide support, stoically withstanding the proximity of the sword the old warrior still stubbornly held. He lifted one hand and with his fingers made a crisp _snap_-

And they were both gone.

x x x

I sliiightly adjusted Estelle's Grand Chariot attack from how I observed it in the videos I use for reference. I just, thought it kind of made sense? What with some of her other attacks (Pierce Cluster), and with the way I've been presenting the usage of aer. I just thought it seemed a little odd to just see the glowing lights of the big dipper just appear and explode like that, I felt like it needed some more deliberate set up... Well, if the move gets used enough I would probably expect it to become "automatic" and become more like the game version anyway. Sort of like reduced casting time with spells you're so familiar with you no longer need to use the incantation for. Or just shorten it to "Blah blah blah."

And Yeager makes that little sense. I swear, I'm never entirely confident I have a good grasp on him, and so he does stuff that I _think_ I can understand but not quite.

*Fidgets and coughs*

_"Inside!" Alastor suddenly barked, shoving Rita and Estelle from behind to move them fully inside the manor and finally leaving the doorstep himself. He wasted no time in slamming the doors shut._

_"What the hell-?" before I could even finish the door shuddered as something heavy slammed against it from the outside._

_He looked around to us in exasperation. "They have a cave troll!"_

I...I just kept thinking of the Fellowship of the Ring and...Alastor went along with it!


	62. Chapter 62: Heavy Conscience

So the Gowrows had pretty much the desired effect. Seemingly out of the blue and the last thing anyone expected. Well, as was demonstrated by my use of fairy dogs and that random giant evil flower of doom, by now it should be clear that when it suits me I plan to use my own menagerie of "monsters" to spice things up. But to be clear, no I wasn't just putting them in for the sake of randomness. There actually is a reason why they showed up. ...Well, not Gowrows specifically (writer's choice employed there), but for fairy dogs and any type of fairy tale monster to go hand in hand is not an accident.

*Sighs* Now here we have a chapter I almost chickened out of. I was actually afraid of committing to this, and wrote two versions of this chapter as consequence. Both had things I liked and disliked about them, but in the end I nerved up and decided this one was the better choice. Even though I still feel it's kinda flawed. (They all get stuck _talking_ again, araraargh!)

Also, uh, no more promised range of times in which I'll update. I'm not as far into the next chapter as I thought I would be, because I kept getting wrapped up in editing the chapters I had and stuff... Maaan, I really wanna get out of Dahngrest and go get Judith back.

Angelic:

Heheh, that might be just the impression it gave because of the pacing. Chapter 60 was actually longer (the longest I've done), but was also a slow, dialogue focused chapter. 61 was pretty long, but only maybe a page or two over the average my chapters settled into. It was an action packed and fun chapter though! My favorite of these three. Even if trying to stage it around the Mansion of the Wicked was giving me a headache. (Probably would've been easier if I was at that point in the game and could explore it first hand but NOPE, I'm back in Halure right now, giggling as Yuri gets offended by his first wanted poster!)

Making reference pages for the costume and daggers was yet another thing that took me a year to do. Bleh for procrastination and all forms of creative block. :p

Ninuhuju:

Gowrow, yes~ Yep, comparing the Gowrow myth to Big Foot and Nessie is pretty accurate. It just didn't become such a well known story like they did. I tried to keep as loyal to the information I found on them as I could. And whenever something doesn't make logical sense one can always blame the fairies. Or gremlins. Gremlins suck.

x x x

Chapter 62: Heavy Conscience

x x x

"Estelle, wake up! _Please!_" Rita was desperately pleading with the unconscious princess. Her head was pillowed on my folded gi with her pink hair fanning across the floor, the best I could provide in the shattered mess of the Manor of the Wicked's front hall.

"Damn it!" Yuri punched a fist into the wall. He stood with head bowed and shoulders rigid, refusing to turn and face us. Repede was likewise standing with his back to us, but he'd positioned himself between our group and the reorganizing Leviathan's Claw members we'd been left with. Standing guard, most likely.

I was numbed to everything. I knew that a whole load of terrible things had just happened all at once. Disastrous, and the repercussions would probably be like somebody chucked a moderately sized boulder into a pond. But at the moment I couldn't think what would happen next, not even what _had_ happened. I just knelt by Estelle's prone figure, gently smoothing hair away from her face. Watching her chest stir with her slow breaths.

_I'm sorry...I'm sorry...somehow, this is my fault. I know it is. I'm sorry..._

Yeager had briskly reordered the Red-eyes, taking stock and giving assignments to the ones in good enough shape to manage. They were divided between caring for their wounded and trying to fix up the place. Each crew was headed by one of the girls; green hair taking over the first aid initiative while her red haired sister got down to business disposing of the giant dragon carcasses. The dogs had vanished, either having smoked away to nothing unnoticed or...something else.

After a short while the boss of the Leviathan's Guild approached us. Repede growled softly and alerted us, but otherwise made no threatening moves.

"Not that I mean to rush you," he drawled in his almost polite tone (one that still felt as if he was enjoying some private joke at your expense), "but I am afraid we cannot be proper hosts to any guests at this time. Once the dear lady is awake I must ask you be on your way. Feel free to not come again."

"Yeah, we got it," Yuri answered coldly. "Trust me, we don't wanna hang around here any longer than we need to."

Yeager made a slight bow, "Of course, I am not without consideration. You will not be disturbed before you are capable of escorting yourselves off the premises. I'll even overlook the manner in which you have trespassed and incapacitated a number of my men. Good bargain, ja?"

"Ugh," Rita looked away from Yeager in disgust. "Get outta here before I fry you!"

He smirked in a fashion that silently reminded us who exactly was in charge of these here parts, but still obligingly started to walk away.

"Wait," I called out to him, my hand stilling upon Estelle's brow. "Why? You _invited_ Whitehorse here," I clarified. "Why would you do that? There was no way he would have taken that news well, especially not from you of all people."

"Good question," Yuri seconded. "You were practically asking for a fight. And this mess between the guilds is as much your fault as anyone else's."

"Why, whatever could you mean. Although, a fight would not have been unexpected, nein," Yeager obliquely agreed with only as much as he cared to admit to. "Which was why I had most of my dear guild sent away on other business, or else this little pest control problem would have been a trifle. So, why indeed?" He shared a moment of eye contact with me and I felt a moment of apprehension. "It was brought to my attention that our most inspiring Don could resort to something quite drastic, what with those stubborn ideas he gets. I simply thought it would be a shame to lose such a great man at this time."

"To 'lose' him?" Rita repeated. "Why, what's he planning to do now?"

"Mmm," Estelle shifted slightly, eyes blinking open slowly. I leaned over to watch with concern, some frantic thought of checking to see if her eyes dilated normally in my head. "Huh? Mother?" She stared up at me in confusion for a moment before seeming to come to a fuller awareness. "Letha?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it's me."

"Estelle!" Rita cried in relief. "Are you okay? Don't worry us like that!"

"I'm sorry," the princess was baffled and taken aback by us crowding around her. I sat back on my heels and stood up to give her a little more space. "But...what happened? Where are we?"

"You don't remember?" Yuri asked with a worried frown.

"That's not too surprising," I pointed out. "She probably has a concussion, and those can come with short term memory loss. What's the last thing you remember?" I directed the last part to her.

"Umm...we were going into the forest to look for the Don, and Alastor was helping us..." she said slowly. "Oh, right! This must be the Manor the Wicked!"

"You remember?" Rita checked.

Estelle shook her head, but winced and delicately raised one hand to press tenderly against it. "No, but that's where we thought he was going, right? Is the Don alright?"

I sighed. Memory loss after all, and probably the mother of all headaches.

Yeager had taken our distraction as the opportunity to leave, so we wouldn't be able to get any more out of him. And we were short on time.

Feeling reluctant to insist on moving Estelle when she probably could use some good rest, I still felt obliged to keep the group from sticking around any longer. "Guys?" I broke into Rita's fussing and Yuri's more understated concern. "We need to go. Now. We can fill Estelle in on the way, but we should try to get back to Dahngrest as soon as possible."

"Are you kidding?" Rita snapped at me. "We're not going anywhere until we're sure Estelle's alright!"

"The situation back in the city isn't going to wait for us," I argued back.

"I don't see how us being there will make a difference at this point," Yuri commented, "But I'd rather be there anyway. Still, it might be better to wait a bit first."

"No, I'm fine, really!" Estelle tried to convince us. She even got back onto her feet, trying to hide how she wobbled a bit. "See?" _Hell, I feel even worse now_.

Rita was glaring at me as if this was my fault. Er-it actually was. I rubbed at my own head a bit sheepishly, but couldn't allow myself to weaken in my stance.

"In that case..." Yuri walked over to Estelle and then knelt in front of her. "Hop on."

I gaped. Yuri Lowell...offering a piggyback ride? It-it was something I thought incapable of happening. The game almost went out of its way to have Yuri be _excluded_ from doing that sort of thing!

"Oh! Um..." the princess shared in my bewilderment. Although in her case it was perfectly likely the result of a childhood where piggyback rides weren't considered proper, and extensive bodily contact with a young man outright _scandalous!_

"Come on, don't leave me hanging here," he coaxed her. "This way we can get going without making you push yourself too hard."

"No, that's alright, you really don't have-" Estelle swayed on her feet and Rita grabbed at her elbow to steady her. "Al-alright, if you really don't mind," she caved.

Estelle was soon situated on Yuri's back, although the poor princess was blushing and didn't seem to know where to put her hands. And the overly concerned mage kept warning him to be careful with her and alternately, "don't you _dare_ pull something like the old pervert!"

"Give it a rest already, Rita! Besides, since I'm going to have my hands a little full here, it'll be up to you two and Repede to take care of anything."

When Yuri pointed that out I nodded grimly. "Nothing will touch you," I promised, pulling my gi back on and tying it shut. My words felt hollow even to me though. The surprise at Yuri's gesture had worn off and taken along with it the preceding numbness.

I was starting to feel angry.

The swordsman gave me a hard look, and there was some doubt in his dark eyes. But he nodded in acceptance anyway.

We were all set to leave out the abused doors still hanging ajar when someone called out. "You, girl in the black! Wait a minute."

Everyone stopped as I looked around. It was a purple dressed Red-eyes. He sounded familiar... "You're the one from before," I said, remembering his expressed wish that I would just die in the fight.

His mouth pulled into a sour grimace. "I don't want your posse listening in."

I glanced around at my friends. "I'm kinda following a policy of hiding as little from these guys as possible. So unless it's real personal you may as well say it now." For some reason that made Rita scowl again. Then again, half the stuff I said had that effect.

The assassin glared at me. "You're the last one who could have seen Jasper. You both fell in Cados, and there's been no sign of him since."

I sucked in a deep breath as my heart skipped a beat. He caught it. "I knew it."

"...You planning to do something about it?" Yuri asked when I failed to respond. God, I hoped he didn't plan to start a fight while Estelle was still on his back.

"Me? No." I blinked in surprise. But the Red-eyes had folded his arms and I got the impression he was rolling his eyes. "Jasper never knew when to call it quits and always bit off more than he could chew. He was going to get himself killed that way sooner or later."

"Then...?" I began tentatively.

"Family's still family. I might not be out for your head, but you damn better know there's those of us who hope you rot!" With a bitter laugh he tossed a white square at me that I had to lurch forward to catch. "And it looks like we might get lucky there." With that the Red-eyes turned and was lost amidst the other near identical guild members.

Rita crossed her arms. "What was that all about? They were the one's who attacked us in the Weasand anyway."

"And she fell down a hole that _you_ made," Yuri reminded her, getting an irritated growl in return.

"What did he give you?" Estelle asked, forgetting her embarrassment and lingering confusion in favor of curiosity. She actually looked pretty cute trying to peer over Yuri's shoulder.

While they'd been talking I had been turning the unmarked envelope over in my hands. Opening it, I withdrew a folded piece of paper. "...A letter from Ludwig."

Rita frowned. "That guy pretending to be your uncle? Why would Leviathan's Claw have a letter from him?"

"Ah damn," Yuri muttered. "I forgot about that old bastard."

His reaction puzzled them both, prompting Estelle to ask, "What do you mean?"

"The dear old uncle has taken a job to kill Letha," he explained with a complete lack of tact. "I overheard him talking with someone about it the first time we were in the Coliseum."

Both girls were shocked although I just calmly refolded the paper, sticking it and the envelope into a gi pocket. "Oh Letha! I'm so-"

"Don't," I interrupted Estelle. "It's old news. I've had plenty of time to think about it." We had no further business in the Manor of the Wicked so I took it upon myself to lead the march away.

After an uncomfortable silence, during which we passed out of the main gate, Estelle tried again. "Then, if you don't mind me asking, what did the letter say?"

"Well," I deliberated, "I sent him a letter first. Not that long ago, actually, so I wasn't expecting a reply so quickly."

"Wait a minute. You sent him a letter?" Rita was incredulous. "Why send a letter to someone who wants to kill you?!"

"Yes," I confirmed. "I want to talk with him in person. And he agreed."

The mage spluttered at my nonchalance. "Are you nuts?! Do you _want_ him to kill you?"

"We'll see what happens when we get to that bridge."

"You fit in with the guild idiots perfectly!"

"I suppose I do," I agreed softly. "Anyway, right now there's a couple more important problems."

"What would that be?" Yuri invited me to elaborate.

I stopped and looked around the dark forest. It must've been sometime past midnight and the moon was out, lighting up the ground wherever it managed to work through the tree branches. But everything looked the same without the light of day. "Our guide left without us, and I for one don't remember the way we came..."

An exasperated breath behind me wasn't a reassuring reaction. "Oh great. It's not just me."

x x x

_**Better Kept Private**_

_Rita: "Hiding as little as possible," huh?_

_Letha: Don't tell me you actually have a problem with that._

_Rita: It means you're still hiding something!_

_Letha: *Sighs* Oh come on! Do you want to hear every little sordid detail about my life? If that's the case, I'm sure I could start providing you with regular reports about my bowel movements._

_Rita: Ew, no! You're disgusting!_

_Yuri: No one under sixty should be sharing that information. No one over it either._

_Letha: Then let's never speak of this again. Just saying it made me feel like an old man..._

_**Refresher**_

_Estelle: I can't believe all of that really happened. Judith is in trouble, and the Don..._

_Yuri: Unfortunately it's the truth. You really don't remember any of it?_

_Estelle: Not at all. If only I hadn't fallen unconscious! I might've been able to help._

_Rita: I wouldn't be so sure about that. The Don looked pretty bad..._

_Yuri: We'll just have to hurry back and see. That old man's tough, maybe he'll pull through._

_Letha: I'm afraid of what we'll see either way..._

x x x

Repede's nose was vital for finding our way back in the dark. He was able to sniff out the traces of our first trip through the forest. Unfortunately this meant we had to replicate Alastor's detours as well, which weren't so beneficial when doing so didn't actively prevent us from running across monsters like the first time around.

Part of me welcomed encounters with aggressive monsters. Freely going all out with daggers and aer allowed me to physically vent the frustration piling up inside. In all honesty I was also clinging to every little delay that put off our return to the city. Even though I knew that was the last thing to be hoped for, I just deeply dreaded what we would find and what would happen. Horrible feelings that gave me an even greater need to lash out with my body and feel something break.

I'd never been able to indulge in such destructive urges on Earth. Working on a homework assignment I hated and would just love to tear to little pieces? No, couldn't dare. Frustrated about people I couldn't stand? Could never lift a finger against them, never mind whether I would even be _able_ to take them in a fight. And days when all you wish you could do was to smash something against a wall? Well, breaking your own stuff was counter productive, and breaking someone else's stuff would give you more problems. Pummel a wall? Ow, no. For so long, I had no _physical _outlet.

Here, monster blood flowed red. And thought needn't follow.

But I was realizing that I didn't like this freedom either. It felt good, but that in itself made me feel wretched.

"You're not going to name this one?"

Yuri's question made me pause in consideration. Rita and I had beaten one of the giant turtle monsters in record time. The swordsman had been about to lower Estelle to the ground, ready to join in the fight, when Rita had immobilized the big reptile with an ivy tangle coaxed out of the forest undergrowth with a spell. I had quickly dispatched it before the vines could break, needing only a couple of quick swipes of my daggers (with Pierce added to give them extra edge) across the neck. Quick and clean, and we were free to move along again.

Except that I had almost forgotten my previous habit.

I looked back at the turtle, the pool of blood under its head just a patch of darkness in the night. But the sky was getting lighter the way we were going. Dawn wasn't far away. "Not really in the mood for that game," I said quietly.

"Don't let it get you down."

Blinking at Yuri in confusion, I cast a glance in the direction of the giant turtle again. "...Did I look like I was beating myself up over killing that thing or something?"

Yuri walked past me, Estelle's head resting on his shoulder. The princess must have fallen asleep. "I meant about Ludwig. You've been out of it since getting his letter."

"Oh." Well that made a lot more sense.

He perceptively caught my lukewarm reaction to the name. "Was that not it either?"

I shrugged even though he wouldn't be able to see me, following along about five steps behind him. "As I said, I'll worry about that when the time comes. The problem at hand is still the Don and what to do about Palestralle."

"What do you have to worry about that for?" Rita chimed in from ahead of us, stopping in order to turn around and fix me with an accusatory glare. "Good or bad, you know what'll happen anyway. Unlike the rest of us."

I groaned and rubbed at my forehead with a hand. Before I could stress yet again that my knowledge wasn't infallible, Yuri beat me to the punch. "Something else changed again, didn't it?"

Startled, all I could manage was a little, "Uh, yes. But..."

"You've been antsy since the Don went missing. And not cracking as many jokes as usual," Yuri gave a little roll of the shoulder Estelle's head wasn't propped on. "Could be a lot of reasons for that, you've certainly been up to enough trouble. But the way you've been brooding ever since leaving the Manor of the Wicked? If it's not over that letter, it's because of something that happened there."

"Well who wouldn't be upset over seeing a man lose his arm?" I asked drily. "Not a common occurrence back home unless you live in a war zone or join the army-neither of which apply to me-and even here it's not something you expect to see all the time."

My reference to "back home" came out awkwardly. I hadn't outright said I meant Earth, but it hung unspoken in the air. It put distance between them and me.

The awkwardness lasted until the swordsman gave an acknowledging grunt. "Well, I can't speak for the others, but in the knights you see stuff like that at times. Or you may have to do something drastic yourself. And it's probably the same when you've been in the guilds long enough." Repede whined as if in agreement.

Rita gained a troubled look. "There are stories about some bad accidents that happen in the labs sometimes. Most of the time nobody gets hurt unless they were doing something stupid-some idiots shouldn't be allowed in the same room as unidentified blastia. But Estelle must not have seen anything like that before either... Being sheltered in the castle for so long and all." She watched the sleeping girl with some concern. "Maybe it's better if she doesn't remember."

"Maybe," I agreed halfheartedly. "But having holes in your memory isn't that great."

The awkward silence returned. Yuri and Rita exchanged a silent look, one that I didn't miss with the predawn sky getting even lighter. Early rising birds had begun chirping in some of the trees.

"Let's keep moving," Yuri urged us on again.

After we walked for roughly half an hour in silence, Rita and I had fallen into pace more or less beside each other. The mage was shooting glances at me, perhaps thinking I didn't notice. "What is it, Rita?" I wearily tried to spur her into whatever question she had.

But-"N-nothing! I wasn't planning on talking with you at all!"-she stubbornly snapped her eyes forward and forged ahead of me again. I had to sigh. _Back to the cold treatment. Rita...you're kinda tsundere_.

x x x

At last the city lay ahead of us. We were exhausted, Estelle being the only one to have gotten any sleep. In my case I'd been up ever since Jeanne had rolled me out of bed the morning before.

"Well," Yuri shielded his eyes against the dawning sunlight, "I don't see anything burning or people at each others' throats. Pretty safe to say the war didn't start without us." But there were some menacing looking machines on the city outskirts that hadn't been there before, attended by a crowd of people. And a few more of the machines (presumably blastia) in the streets themselves, although facing outwards towards the offending trespassers. They looked like...war machines, siege engines and stuff.

"Whitehorse," I breathed, and ran at full tilt for the city's western entrance.

"Hey, wait up!" Yuri called from behind me. I only slowed once I had to gasp for air, and by then I was right outside.

The others caught up with me soon enough. And we could see another small, brown haired figure running out to meet us.

"Y-Yuri!" Karol sobbed. "Guys!" He skidded to a halt right in front of us. His eyes were red rimmed and it looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep overnight.

His distraught state made our princess gasp with concerned alarm. "Karol! What's wrong?"

"The-the Don," the boy's voice had begun to choke up as he blinked rapidly. He was actually fighting back tears. "He came back, no one saw where he and Alastor came from, but he-!"

"Calm down, Karol," Yuri ordered him firmly. "Take a deep breath. How is Whitehorse holding up?"

His head lowered as the boy rubbed his forearm across his face, sniffling into a sleeve. ""He lost an arm, Yuri! And a lot of blood! The healers were locked in a room with him all night, and no one knows if he's gonna make it! He-he only said he had some trouble with monsters before passing out. And..." the boy's head fell.

"And? Spit it out already!" Rita demanded, on edge.

"H-Harry, he's..." Karol fell silent, reluctant to finish the thought even with the threat of facing Rita's wrath.

I had a horrible feeling, a premonition I would almost call it. I didn't need any clairvoyance or Fairy Magic to tell me that something had gone badly.

Karol was too shocked to speak any further, and I couldn't bear waiting for him to snap out of it. Again I broke out into a run, hardly even seeing the people I dodged around or nearly shoved over in my blind rush.

Part of my mind whispered reason, directing me where the crowds were thickest. Surely they would be gathered where events were coming to a head; I would find out what was happening if I cut to the heart.

I forced my way to the central square of Dahngrest. It was packed there with both Nordopolica members clustered under a banner and the city's own residents. That should have been a recipe for chaos and hot tempers. But it was abnormally quiet. The Palestralle people didn't even seem to have much fight in them anymore. If anything, it looked more like they were preparing to pull out, most of them already gathered into a group at the head of a street that would take them out of the city.

Come to think of it, the whole run had been quiet, the people I'd almost run down dispirited.

Chase was there on the edge of the crowd, back turned and head hung low like Karol's. Heavy with defeat.

I craned my neck, trying to see past the mass of people, see what was at the very center.

...Through the crowd I caught a glimpse of Raven kneeling next to something on the ground. A body of a man...with blond hair and a red stripe across the bridge of his nose. The old archer was closing the eyes with an unsteady hand.

My steps faltered and I stood in place. My vision was cut off again as someone else blocked my view while shifting in place, but I had seen enough.

"Harry? But..." my voice failed me. _He's not supposed to die_...

Suddenly I felt suffocated. All those people pressing in from all sides. Knowing that if something had _changed_ it must have had something to do with my presence. My fault. Any second they'd all realize I was there, they'd turn on me and asked why I'd done this, why was this my fault why had it changed why did someone still have to _die?_

I nearly tripped on my own feet as I lurched to the side and stumbled to another street. It didn't matter where, just _away_ was all I wanted. I needed to get away.

Had someone noticed me? Were they all watching me trying to escape? Did they know there was something _wrong_ with me being there, that everything was wrong, I was wrong-

"You!" An unexpected interruption to my thoughts grabbed my attention and yanked me out of my despair. I looked around in time to see thunderous fury in blue eyes framed by red hair.

That was really all that I had the time to consciously register as my brain was trying to establish whether I was looking at "Alastor" or "Not-Alastor" before I became painfully aware that he was throwing a fist at me.

My head snapped to the side with the blow and my brain felt rattled in my skull. _Fu-fucking ASS!_ What had just happened didn't really sink in yet, but I already knew I was pissed. In my fragile state of mind I reverted to the destructive mode I'd been in through most of the night.

It was rather too late to properly execute any correct aikido response to an uppercut (the "correct" version would have kept it from landing in the first place) but in my anger I reacted quick enough that I grabbed his wrist before it had withdrawn.

With not so much grace but damned plenty ruthlessness, I extended down with the arm that had grabbed the offending fist and took the broad steps needed for a tenkan. Upset his center of control, force him into leaning over to follow his own hand, tenkan had brought me to stand back to back with him, then keep _moving-!_

"What the hell?!" he squawked while face planting into the ground. _Ah, it's Clifton_. I was kneeling with one knee pushed up against his rib cage and my outstretched arms pinning his flat out across the ground. With ease I kept the sprawled man down even once he recollected himself and tried to force his way back up.

"Why...?" I tried to ask him.

"Why?" He repeated in angry disbelief. "You fucking ask _why?!_ This is all your fault!"

I tried again. "Why is he... What happened here...?"

"Oh that's rich!" he spat out, still squirming and trying to fight me off. "How do you have the gall to pretend you don't know? It's your 'story' isn't it? Don't you already fucking know that Harry killed himself?!"

That hit harder than Clifton's fist. I rocked back on my heels, the words echoing in my head.

_Harry killed himself-Harry killed himself-Harry killed himself_

_Harry killed himself!_

Clifton rose up in front of me, hands lifting up and grabbing the collar of my gi. He dragged me up to my feet. He probably would've liked to have picked me up entirely to throw around, but he was a shorter than average man. Hardly two inches taller than me.

With my guilt I couldn't meet his flint hard stare, my own eyes drifting to look past his ear. We'd drawn some attention, people were watching the drama. Some looked downright pissed at us for acting up under the circumstances. Others looked numbly curious. Hungry for any distraction from their own worries. The crowd stirred in a few places as some people tried to push their way out front.

"Don't look away from me!" he shouted. "What are you going to do about this? You knew, didn't you? You knew this would happen, that Harry would kill himself to appease Nordopolica! Didn't you?! Why didn't you stop it?!"

Panic set in full force.

Everyone was listening. Everyone _knew_. _They knew it was my fault_.

I couldn't think anymore. All I wanted was to get away, and hide from all the staring eyes.

There was a move for escaping a grab like Clifton had on me. Him using both hands even made it easier in a way. Starting with raising my own arms up and crossing them over his forearms-

Clifton rose up in front of my eyes again. Baffled, my mouth fell open as I watched Chase grab the smaller man by the back of his neck and lift him fully off the ground. I actually got jerked forward a step as Cliff's fists were still clenched around my collar, but thankfully he couldn't keep hold of me.

Not the least bit bothered by the weight of the full grown adult, Chase actually turned Clifton around in the air and...smiled at him. "Hey there, plant food. Before you go roughing up someone, maybe you should take a minute to remind yourself that you owe her your life, worthless as it is."

The redhead was trying to pry Chase's hands from his own neck, and couldn't get out any more than a gurgle. The Earthling continued to smile anyway. "Oh, and if you're going to blame her for something she had no power over? Remember that _I_ knew what was supposed to go down here too and did just as lousy a job trying to fix it. So next time, you'll come to me with your complaints first, got it?" Finally he released the other and Cliff dropped to the ground, knees buckling and collapsing him to the street. He gasped and started coughing.

"Alright, I'm thinkin' you've made yer point. Both of ya." Unnoticed with the crowd and drama, Raven had managed to work his way across the square to our position. He broke up the confrontation by bodily placing himself between the two men before the recovering Clifton could try to retaliate. "Now, I know all the rest of you have better things ta do than stand around with yer jaws dustin' the ground all day. Movin' Harry outta the street for starters."

That got people moving again, listless as many of them still were. Palestralle was gone. Harry was covered respectfully with a sheet a woman who apparently lived near at hand provided, and arrangements were under way to transport him to Union Headquarters.

A bright spot of white shadowed by a black figure caught my eye. Estelle and Yuri had arrived with the others and were surveying the scene. The princess' gloved hands covered her mouth as her eyes fixed on the sheet covered form. Rita kicked at something on the ground with a scowl. Karol was a lifeless zombie trailing behind them. Yuri didn't linger overlong on the body before looking around and spotting us. He frowned upon seeing Clifton with us.

For a minute Raven watched as Dahngrest's gears got to grinding again. When Clifton succeeded in standing again the archer gave him an exaggeratedly surprised look. "Yer still here? Hey, it's totally your choice if ya wanna stick around. But if this guy here gets it in his head to shake you up some more, I sure hope yer not countin' on this old man to bail you out." Chase smiled again. He was getting positively feral looking the way he kept flashing his teeth at the guy.

Cliff glared daggers at them both before taking his leave. He purposefully passed the rest of the group, banging his shoulder against Yuri on the way. The swordsman ignored him, causing the disgruntled man to shoot another dirty look after the group from behind.

Raven shook his head with a sigh. Then glancing my way he asked, "Y'okay down there, Letha darlin'?"

It was only then I realized that I had sunk down and was sitting on the cobbled street. When had my legs gone weak on me? In response I nodded mutely.

The old man eyed me dubiously. "Right, that's convincin'." He squatted down in front of me and started pulling on one of my cheeks so that my mouth stretched. "C'mon, let's get a smile!"

I smacked his hand away and frowned at him. "Are you serious? This is the worst time for cracking jokes! I'd think you'd be the last person who'd want to right now. How could you let Harry-?!" I choked up on that thought.

"We didn't _want_ to let him!" Chase protested. His hands clenched at his side and he scowled downwards. "Dammit, if I'd known he'd been planning this I would've locked him up in a broom closet..."

Raven didn't say anything. His mouth drew a grim line and his eyes... Well, it was the first time I had ever honestly thought he _looked_ old, beyond my picking up the habit of calling him such from the others. He just looked so tired and run down.

_Shit_. My head fell, slumping down between my shoulders. _Why'd I go and say that? I'm the one who changed things here, it's not Raven's or even Chase's fault!_

It was a relief when the others regrouped with us, Yuri making an attempt at breaking the brooding atmosphere. "Another run in with our favorite asshole?" He indicated the way Clifton had gone.

"Nothin worth repeatin', just a load of hot air," Raven said brusquely, standing up and brushing off his baggy pants. I winced, since I had essentially turned around and thrown Cliff's accusation right at him.

...Harry's covered body had been transferred onto a makeshift stretcher of sorts. With two men to lift it and an escort of dour faced guild members, he was carried off towards the Headquarters.

Raven was the first to follow after them, it being his duty as a member of Altosk. Chase was next, but he paused after only a few steps to beckon the rest of us. There was some serious talk we needed to have, and not out in the streets.

x x x

"What happened?"

It was the question we were asking about how everything had gone to shit in Dahngrest, and likewise what Chase wanted to know about how we'd managed to send the Don back minus one arm.

Speaking of which, Whitehorse was still alive. There was a lot of conflicting information flying around inside the Headquarters about his current state of welfare, but the simple fact that healers were still going in and out of his room or sending for hot water and towels and gels and even _life_ bottles (Good God, they existed, I had been sure they were a gaming construct) was a damn good indication he wasn't dead yet. But in no shape to be giving orders.

Or else I'd bet we'd be hearing him bellowing at people even through closed doors.

And Harry wouldn't be lying dead in another room, left there until arrangements for a proper burial could be made.

Didn't feel like much of a victory against predestination.

"Harry, he..." Chase shook his head, leaning back against a wall and thumping the back of his head against it. The sound was muffled by a colorful tapestry hung there. Taking a deep breath first, the greatswordsman began to relate everything to us. "Before we all split up yesterday, Letha and I were talking, right?"

Yuri inclined his head. "You were the last ones out, after the old man." Raven had only stuck around long enough to hear our end of the story before he had to go back to dealing with the guilds. So he wasn't there to add his two cents. _That's right, Raven looked like he had something he wanted to say before leaving yesterday...I wonder what_.

"Well," Chase continued, "Probably not a shocker that we were talking about what was, uh, supposed to happen."

Rita crossed her arms. "So what? Is this mess all 'according to plan' or not?"

"Rita, they don't mean it like that," Estelle said softly. "They're trying not to let people get hurt..."

"Maybe they should just _tell_ us what's going to go wrong then! That'll sure save us some time!"

"Harry was listening," I spoke up dully. "The only way to appease Palestralle for their loss was for someone to pay the price. Whitehorse is a hell of a leader; he would have taken responsibility."

"'Taken responsibility'," Yuri repeated, eyes narrowing. "You're saying he would've given them his own life."

"What?!" Karol's head shot up. He'd been sitting in a corner, seemingly dead to the world. "No! He wouldn't do that! He can't!"

Chase sighed. "Too late for that anyway. Harry overheard us, and I guess it must have been the first time it occurred to him how much he could lose. So...when Palestralle arrived, he was already volunteering his life to make amends.

"Raven shot him down immediately of course... Although some of the other guild heads weren't all that opposed. One life to avoid a war after all."

"That's awful," Estelle eyes dimmed. "I'm sure if everyone had talked it over, they could have found another way that didn't involve someone dying..."

"We tried to get them to do that, but..." Chase couldn't meet our eyes. "Then there was a whole commotion out in the halls. Somebody ran into Al trying to carry the Don in, and with all the blood they were covered in all hell broke loose. The Don wasn't conscious for very long after that, and Al took off for the hills the first chance he got."

Rita's brow scrunched up. "Why'd he do that?"

With a little snort Chase explained, "See, the whole teleporting thing is harder than they make it look, and they try to avoid appearing inside a town or city if they can help it. Just suddenly throwing themselves into the middle of a place with iron and stuff everywhere is like some kind of magical whiplash. So in short, Al feels like shit and went off to hide somewhere until he feels less vulnerable. Probably."

"Gee, how helpful," the mage remarked sarcastically.

The Earthling man sighed. "Strange as it sounds, for awhile we thought it was a lucky break. It seemed like Palestralle might back off given how close we were to losing him. But..."

Given the situation we'd come back to, it wasn't hard to guess. Yuri turned away from us, hiding his expression. "They didn't want to go home empty handed, huh. Even if the Don doesn't recover, him dying from plain bad timing wouldn't mean the same to them as an intentional sacrifice."

"So Harry..." Estelle couldn't finish the thought.

Chase nodded wearily. "He got his way in the end. 'I can't let other people keep taking responsibility for my mistakes,' he told Raven and me. Even though Raven told him he was just diving in headfirst without thinking, just like with Belius. Still didn't change his mind."

The silence in the room was heavy. Everyone was absorbed in their own thoughts, studying their hands or specks on the floor or walls for all I could tell, and none of them really seeing any of it. Yuri still had his back to us all, but from my angle I could see the tight clench of his jaw.

"No!" Karol leaped up with unexpected energy, startling us with his outburst. With hands raised to grab at his brown hair, he shook his head hard before running out of the room entirely.

"What's with him?" Rita eyed the door as if expecting the boy to come running back in waving his arms and yelling gibberish.

Estelle was more sympathetic. "Karol looks up to the Don, and he was getting along well with Harry on the Fiertia. This must be hard for him..."

I stared sullenly where the boy had been sitting just moments before. He'd been so worked up, he didn't even realize he'd left his bag behind. I had never seen that kid without his bag before. Even in sleep he kept it nearby as a rather lumpy pillow.

Chase rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Maybe someone should go after him? I'm not all that close to the kid, but since you're his friends..."

"Give the Captain some space," Yuri advised instead. "He just needs some time alone to get his head straight. We all do." He faced us all again, looking casual and unperturbed. "Why don't we take the day off? We'll leave early tomorrow."

Estelle looked up quickly. "But we still need to help Judith! If we don't hurry, something could happen to her!"

The swordsman frowned and thought it over for a minute. "It's already been more than a week, and getting to Mount Temza won't exactly be short trip. One day shouldn't make a difference, and we won't do any good if we're beaten by small fry on the way to the ship just 'cause some of us are tired." Acting very casual about it, he picked Karol's bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder.

That action won a small smile out of the princess, "Yes, I guess you're right."

Chase sighed to himself. "Guess I'll be trying to figure out where Al went in the mean time."

I collected my own bag and excused myself quietly. On my way out I heard Estelle suggesting she help the Don's healers if she could, and Rita trying to shoot her down on the grounds that she still needed to rest after that concussion. I had a fair guess who would win that disagreement.

If we had the day to ourselves, I had two goals. Firstly, find a place where I could get some sleep. Secondly, try to earn a little more gald before we were on the move again. Since Jeanne's place was out of the question, I hoped I could accomplish both in one place.

x x x

I sought sanctuary at the Sagittarius, curled up on a small sofa kept in the back room, trying to catch a little nap. Sally's father, the tavern owner, was initially reluctant to let me crash there but ended up giving the okay. He was in the next room over and the sounds of him working in the kitchen were both distracting and comfortingly normal. Plus I didn't have to pay money.

It was a tiny room used as employee lounge and storage, with a large closet hidden behind a curtain for changing. With the lights out and window blinds pulled, the cramped room was pretty dark. So it was pointless to pull out the white envelope the Red-eyes had given me earlier. Still I had withdrawn it from my gi, turning it over and feeling it.

I had told the others that it was a letter from Ludwig, which _was_ true. But it also contained a missive from Alexei.

It was Ludwig's letter I was after. The larger of the sheets of paper, folded in thirds, with one ragged side showing it had been torn from a book. Thick paper that was probably intended for sketching purposes. It had said:

_**Letha,**_

_**If I believed I was deserving, I would still wish to call you niece. I had hoped that we could remain in such roles. That I would not be called on to face you as an enemy.**_

_**There is a history behind my choices, but I shall not offer it in my defense. There is no excuse that would validate my honor.**_

_**When we meet, we shall talk. I can make no further promises.**_

_**False Samaritan, Ludwig**_

That last part though. Fucking stabbed in the heart, seeing him sign it like that. Those three words were an entire letter's worth of meaning all on their own. Ludwig only knew about what being a Samaritan meant through what I had told him; the help others moral of the "Good Samaritan" story. If he was "false" then...from the very start...

There was still the other note, from Alexei. I felt dirty just thinking about exchanging letters with him behind the others' backs. I should probably dispose of it so there'd be no disaster like someone finding it in my bag, but not quite yet. It was written on a very smooth feeling sheet of paper, folded crisply just once. The terse message read:

_**Regroup with the target at earliest opportunity. Debrief with Schwann when convenient. Await further instruction; Schwann is familiar with delivery protocol. Refrain from the use of vulgarities and illegible nonsense in future reports.**_

That had at least given me a brief surge of triumphant satisfaction. "Refrain from," ha ha... And there wasn't even any mention of how I'd left out the title "Commandant" when I had addressed simply to "Alexei." He must have realized trying to reprimand me into showing him respect was a losing battle. And I found myself wishing I could send back another note right away full of profanity just to stick it to him.

How had I sent messages to both of them?

By taking advantage of my run in with Yeager a few days back.

When I had offered to pay him for his services, he had taken me to a bar in order to discuss business. Not to the Sagitarrius but to a smaller, less popular place called Spica.

_Yeager even ordered drinks once we picked one of the alcoves. I declined anything but water._

_As I picked the lemon slice from the rim of my glass and squeezed some of the juice into the water the blue haired man across from me finally decided to stop playing around. "So, meine fraulein who was so recently attempting to shame me for my line of profession, what has changed your mind?" A predatory smile curled across his lips. "Is there perhaps someone after all? One whom you wish killed?"_

_Maybe he was hoping to shake me with his bluntness and throwing my own "hypocrisy" back at me. Didn't work. "If that was the case I wouldn't hire an assassin to do the deed," I said flatly. "I don't believe using a third party like that would keep my hands clean-as if I hadn't already dirtied them."_

_His eyebrows both arched up. "I suppose such an attitude is...refreshing. Although it does not make for good business, and does not answer why you seek to hire my guild."_

_"Not necessarily your guild," I mulled aloud, stirring my glass of water and lemon idly, "If you personally could help. Since primarily, I want advice?"_

_"Advice?" He was curious now, or so I thought._

_"You specialize in causing war and having people killed. So maybe you'll have some insight to the reverse, and can tell me how to keep someone from being killed?"_

_That won a short laugh from him. "Ah, fraulein, I am thinking you have gone to the wrong guild! There are many others that brag of their skill in protecting the weak."_

_I shook my head. "That won't be any good. The one I hope to save isn't weak, and normal means of protection aren't going to cut it. Because, I'm afraid, it won't stop him if there isn't some other way..."_

_"Perhaps," Yeager watched me intently, "you should explain to me clearly, ja? Who's life is this we are discussing?"_

_I tilted my head, wondering what reaction I'd get. "Don Whitehorse."_

_No transforming moment of surprise or shock crossed his face. All I caught was a minute widening of his eyes that I could have imagined. Well, I'm no expert at reading people. But perhaps the fact that he's not making an over the top reaction means I actually surprised him? Yeager seemed the type, to me, who would fake a surprised reaction when he wanted to fool the gullible or mess with the shrewd. But it was fact that he was far more experienced at this sort of exchange than I, so he could very well be playing me._

_Giving up on trying to figure out if I was right or wrong (I didn't need to start playing mind games with myself!) I outlined an explanation of the events in Nordopolica. How the Duce had been killed over a "misunderstanding" between guilds and the Don's grandson Harry was right in the thick of it. "Of course, I'm just repeating what you know already. It's not like you weren't involved behind the scenes here." No beating around the figurative bush, I hacked it to pieces with a verbal machete. _

_The slippery man only smiled at me, "I am afraid I don't know what you could be talking about. But in any case, why do you believe only the Don's life needs to be considered? This is precisely the fuel for the flames of war."_

_"Fine fine, I know already, that's your job..." trying to argue him into admitting his role was just a waste of energy. "But then don't you realize? You won't be getting a war out of this anyway."_

_He had a "please enlighten me" kind of look, so I didn't bother waiting for him to say anything. "For something like this, do you think the Don will allow a fight to happen? He went along with the Fake Letter Fiasco in order to root out the rats behind it, but his intention was always to keep it from coming to war with the Empire. Although from what I heard, there was a little fighting anyway..."_

_"Ah, but that was with the Empire, and this is between us guilds. It can not be thought of as the same situation."_

_"Exactly," I actually agreed with him. "It's even more important that there be no fighting, so that the guilds present a unified front that the Empire won't see a weakness in. A fight between the Union and Palestralle will weaken everyone and leave them sitting ducks."_

_"And losses on both sides would surely be high," Yeager calculated._

Back and forth we had laid out all the reasons for why the war would be disastrous, although from Yeager's standpoint the "disaster" was clearly more of an exercise in hypothetical for my benefit. To him it would be lucrative business. In the end his opinion was that resolving the mess without anyone's life being sacrificed would be impossible without more time for preparation. Or a psychic to summon Belius for a séance.

_I slumped across the table, face buried in my folded arms. "So it's really hopeless. Everyone's gonna play the blame game and it'll end in someone or several someone getting killed."_

_"There there," he said patronizingly, and it was made even worse when the bastard patted the top of my head. "You can try the talking approach still, if you feel you must do something. Now will that be all?"_

_"Right, you want me to pay you so you can leave."_

_"Me oh my, you make my simple question out to sound so boorish."_

_I lifted my head part way from my arms. "...The price for an opinion that just confirms what I'm thinking should be cheap, right? So I can still afford to hire you for something with the gald I have left."_

_"Another request outside my expertise?"_

_I rubbed the top of my head myself, annoyed that he'd touched me there earlier. "It's not like it's a big deal, it won't even be dangerous for you. Though it's kind of a two part request. If you could find out information about any former members of The Protectors guild for me, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to meet them and talk about something..."_

_"Meaning you wish me to provide you with an intelligence network, ja? And the second part of your request?"_

_Pulling up my bag into my lap, I rummaged around inside it until I found a few scraps of paper I had stuffed in there and a pen. "There's...a couple of letters I've been trying to figure out how to send. If you could help with that..."_

_That seemed to irritate him slightly, or maybe not, but in either case it prompted a dead(ish)pan, "Leviathan's Claw is not a courier service."_

_"You took a job to kidnap and deliver me, so you're half way to being delivery boys," I shrugged, scribbling out the first note and frowning as I tried to decide how to sign it. "By the way, I hope you'll tell your men that Verte doesn't need them chasing me down on sight anymore."_

_"Hmm? Ah, nein, we are no longer employed by the lady," he waggled a few fingers dismissively. "We have already done adequate service in earning the gold she paid. Although I can not guarantee that certain rash subordinates of mine will not hold a grudge."_

_And ugly memories of Jasper Birdman... "Gold?" I repeated, "Not gald?"_

_"Ja, gold coins of a make I am unfamiliar with. But gold remains gold, whatever form it takes."_

_"If it's actually gold," I remarked. This was a fairy we were talking about. "Verte's people are known for using fake substitutes for gold that seem real at the time, only to turn out to be dross and garbage later. I'd double check that payment if I were you."_

_It was a bit comforting that while I was struggling to find the right words for the second letter, Yeager was looking a bit sour. He didn't even reject me a second time when I finally presented him with the finished letters, labelled "Alexei" and "Ludwig Vitae."_

_The letters inside read as:_

_**Ludwig,**_

_**Can I still call you "uncle"?**_

_**I wish I could. You're the closest to any family I even have anymore. You and Sophia, and I never even met her. The help you gave me really meant a lot to me.**_

_**But that's why I have to ask. I have to know, why did you help me?**_

_**Are you really planning to kill me?**_

_**We need to talk this over in person. I probably sound stupid, wanting to meet someone who may be trying to kill me, **__** but if it's you **_

_**Anyway. I'll be in Dahngrest for a few days. If you miss me, well, if I'm right about things you'll still find me sooner or later.**_

_**Just, please, talk to me first? **__**Please**__**.**_

_**Letha**_

_There were parts crossed out and some words completely blocked out with ink. Between "planning to kill me" and "We need to talk" there was an inch worth of scribbled out lines. What was it I was trying to say to Ludwig? Too much for a letter, I needed to see him in person._

_The other letter was easier to write even though it pained me just as much for different reasons. Then I couldn't figure out what name to sign it with, crossing each one out in turn. Frustrated, I indulged in a childish fit of temper at the end, concluding with a post script in my own Earth's writing._

_**Alexei**_

_**I'm in Dahngrest waiting for the others to arrive. Because I know they will. That's it for a report.**_

_**Letha **__** Aria **__** Vitae **__** Fuck It**_

_**[P.S. And you're still a total Asshat.] ***_

Yeager hadn't been at all amused either to find out one of my letters was going to the Commandant of the Imperial Knights, although that explained for itself why I was having trouble figuring out how to send it. And I had just given him a knowing smirk when he questioned why I thought he'd be able to. I think that I may have unnerved him. I, uh, had allowed my eyes to flicker down towards his chest for less than a second, but long enough for him to notice.

But I'd never expected he could send it to Alexei _and_ receive a response in such a short frame of time! Not to mention finding Ludwig, wherever he was, and bringing back his reply.

Draping my arm across my eyes to further block myself off in darkness, I tried to empty my mind and calm down.

There'd been one part of my conversation with Yeager...

_"Honestly?" I confessed with some weariness, "The thought has crossed my mind to ask you to try and draw the Don out of Dahngrest before he can receive news about what happened. Lure him away and then when Palestralle arrives try to reason with them until they change their minds. But if the Don caught on to what you were doing, it'd cause trouble for you guys. I doubt I have enough gald to make that worth your while."_

_"If it were the case that you could pay most handsomely for the trouble," Yeager remarked, "such a strategy would make averting the war more difficult. If you believe they could be dissuaded from their purpose, surely the Don would be more than capable."_

_"True..."_

Back then, had I given him the idea to call the Don out? But why would he? It wasn't at all productive in dissuading Palestralle.

Had he been trying to keep the Don from being involved and out of danger, at the risk of the people back in the city? Or did he have some other reason for talking with Whitehorse at that time? It hadn't seemed like they talked about anything else.

_He could just have been trying to make sure a war would happen after all_. I made a face into the crook of my arm. Possible, but I would like to hope for the first explanation. The man had his decent side, buried way down under layers of bullshit. But I probably shouldn't count on that side when dealing with him.

My eyelids were dragging. I rolled over and shoved the letters deep inside my recovered bag. Putting them inside the hidden interior pocket was useless as the others knew it existed now, so I just hoped for them to be lost among the jumble of stuff for the time being.

_So the plan is to get some shut eye and then earn some extra gald for the "Buy an Iron Based Weapon" fund_. The thought was morbidly pleasing as I was drifting off, mentally adding items to the shopping list such as iron nails and salt.

x x x

...Uh huh.

I stuck in the original letters Letha had written and sent off with Yeager. I'm immensely frustrated with fanfic net for not allowing strike out formating so I could show which lines Letha crossed out when trying to talk to Ludwig. I think showing what she was about to say and then decided against tells a whole lot about her struggle there. * To be clear, the post script sent to Alexei was written in the Roman alphabet, which was why I stuck it in brackets. By which, I mean the regular "Earth Alphabet/Writing System" as Letha tends to refer to it as. Also called the Latin alphabet, and it was derived from Greek. English is a language, not an alphabet, and only one of the Romance Languages of the European countries. Been developing a minor pet peeve to see people call it "English Writing" because no, English speaking countries do not have a monopoly on it and it predates us.

Why the hell do my Author's Notes get so long and/or technical?


End file.
